Louisa Stuart Costello and Nineteenth-Century Journalism

Abstract

For many women writers, journalism was a first step to a literary career or a means to boost income from books of poetry or fiction. Journals and periodicals were in constant need of poetry, essays, and anonymous reviews to fill their pages, particularly after 1840 when new periodicals began to appear weekly. This demand created a market opportunity for women writers in particular because of the “construction of reading as an essentially domestic activity, of writing as a task which could be undertaken at home, and of certain genres— notably fiction and improving or domestic articles—as potentially feminine in character.”² Literary annuals, a genre launched by the publication of the Forget-Me-Not in 1823, similarly featured traditionally feminine themes for a female readership, but equally provided a commercial opportunity for women writers, artists, and editors. While annuals and periodicals are two distinct literary genres, the market dominance of literary annuals and the career opportunities they offered women as contributors and as editors had a lasting impact on women professional writers.

[W]e find, on looking it over, that we have been indebted to the writer for some of her pleasing effusions under the anonymous signature of M. E. Our opinion of her merits were thus obtained a priori, for we allowed her a place in the Literary Gazette, and by the side of poetry such as, we may say without a boast, never grace any periodical publication, till the present period.¹