Journalism, Literature and Modernity: From Hazlitt to Modernism

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Reviews of the hardback edition:

'A meticulously detailed and thought-provoking look at Grub Street.'

Times Literary Supplement

'All the essays have insightful things to say about their individual authors as writers for the periodical press.'

Media History

'An effective geneaology of modern journalism from the early nineteenth century through to the 1930s.'

Sally Ledger, Birkbeck College

Journalism has often been disregarded or represented as 'other' by literary critics and authors. The sense of its difference from literature has been heightened by its identification with daily newspaper journalism and reporting. Yet 'journalism' in its broadest sense refers to all writing in public journals, spanning both high and popular culture. It has been central to experiences of modernity, making its dismissal problematic.

This book considers journalism in all its diversity, examining writing in journals across the cultural spectrum including literary journals, magazines and daily newspapers. Presenting a variety of critical approaches, the authors explore journalism's importance in relation to gender, modernity and modernism.

They offer readings of established writers, critics and journalists:

• William Hazlitt
• Charles Dickens
• Henry Mayhew
• Matthew Arnold
• Walter Pater
• Dora Marsden
• Rebecca West
• Virginia Woolf
• Laura Riding

This book challenges received ideas of journalism's significance in literary and cultural history, as well as perceptions of modernity and modernism.

Key Features

• Considers journalism in both its 'high' and 'low' cultural forms
• Explores journalism's importance in relation to gender, modernity and modernism
• Includes chapters on Hazlitt, Dickens, Arnold and Woolf