Ghent University

Faculty of Arts and Philosophy

Periodical Poetry: Poetry in Relation to the Socio-

Political and Literary Agendas of the English

Woman's Journal and Victoria Magazine

Supervisor:

Dr. Marianne Van Remoortel

May 2015

Paper submitted in partial

fulfilment of the requirements for

the degree of “Master in de Taal-

en Letterkunde: Engels-Duits” by

Richelle Roose

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my promotor Dr. Marianne Van Remoortel. It

was she who introduced me to periodical poetry in her lecture on Victorian poetry last year,

for which I am very grateful. She shares my opinion that you should write your master’s

thesis on something that really interests you, or that you are even passionate about. She is

genuinely interested in my work and shares my enthusiasm for the Victorian period and

female writers. She has helped me enormously and was always ready to answer my questions

or give me tips on how to improve my thesis. I would also like to thank my parents and

Pieterjan for the support they have given me.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 9

2. The Feminist Movement in the Victorian Period ................................................................... 11

2.1. The Langham Place Circle ....................................................................................... 11

2.2. The English Woman’s Journal ................................................................................. 12

2.3. Victoria Magazine ................................................................................................... 14

3. Contributors of Poetry .......................................................................................................... 15

3.1. Contributors of Poetry in the English Woman’s Journal ........................................... 15

3.2. Contributors of Poetry in Victoria Magazine ............................................................ 19

4. Distribution of Poetry ........................................................................................................... 21

4.1. Distribution of Poetry in the English Woman’s Journal ............................................ 21

4.2. Distribution of Poetry in Victoria Magazine ............................................................. 22

5. Topics of Poetry ................................................................................................................... 24

5.1. Poetry about Contemporary Issues ........................................................................... 24

5.1.1. Poetry about the Woman Question ................................................................. 24

5.1.2. Poetry about Modernity ................................................................................. 31

5.1.3. Poetry about Other Current Affairs ................................................................ 34

5.2.Religious, Moral and Spiritual Poetry ...................................................................... 37

5.3. Poetry about Other Writers or Works ....................................................................... 41

5.4. Poetry about Nature, Love and Death ....................................................................... 44

5.5. Poetry with Mythological and Historical References ................................................ 46

6. Reviews of Poetry ................................................................................................................ 48

6.1. Reviews of Poetry in the English Woman’s Journal ................................................. 48

6.2. Reviews of Poetry in Victoria Magazine .................................................................. 52

7. Poetry Articles ...................................................................................................................... 51

8. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 61

9. Works Cited ......................................................................................................................... 66

10. Appendix A: Graphs ............................................................................................................. 72

11. Appendix B: Overview of Poetry, Poetry Reviews and Articles in the English Woman’s

Journal ................................................................................................................................. 78

12. Appendix C: Overview of Poetry, Poetry Reviews and Articles in Victoria Magazine .......... 86

Word Count: 24.797

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1. Introduction

This master’s thesis investigates the poetry in the two Victorian feminist periodicals, the

English Woman’s Journal and the Victoria Magazine in relation to their socio-political and

literary agendas. To date, researchers have studied Victorian periodicals and focused

primarily on essays, articles, contributors, readers and circulation. There have been studies on

Victorian feminist periodicals as well. However, until recently poetry has been almost entirely

neglected. Kathryn Ledbetter writes that “[c]ritics reject and ignore the type of poetry often

found in women’s periodicals, viewing it as inauthentic, not-serious poetry, claiming that the

only purpose for such verse was as frivolous filler, space holders at the end of an article or

issue” (6). It was Linda Hughes who first emphasised the importance of periodical poetry and

the value of studying poems in their original context in her article “What the Wellesley Index

Left Out: Why Poetry Matters to Periodical Studies” (2007). She has examined “why original

poetry mattered to Victorian editors and readers and what poetry can tell us about Victorian

periodicals as a whole” (“Wellesley Index” 91), and claims that periodical poetry served

several purposes. First of all “its inclusion could enhance the cultural value and prestige of the

periodical itself” (94). Secondly “poetry could mediate the miscellaneousness and

ephemerality of the periodical itself”, because poetry was associated with “the universal, the

spiritual, and the permanent” (99). Finally it “could help mediate and rationalize crime reports

or sensational fiction, creating in the midst of cheap print a form of sacred space in which

death, love, God, family, nature, and, in more up-market titles, art, philosophy, and

metaphysics could be contemplated” (100). Hughes has analysed poetry in several

mainstream periodicals, for example, Fraser’s Magazine, Macmillan’s Magazine and the

Cornhill. Similarly, Natalie Houston has published an article called “Newspaper Poems:

Material Texts in the Public Sphere”, which discusses the poetry published in the “large-

circulation general [newspaper]” the London Times (Houston 233). However, there has not

yet been an extensive study of the periodical poetry in the EWJ (English Woman’s Journal)

and Victoria Magazine.

I wanted to find out what kind of poetry is included in these two periodicals, and see if

it is connected to their socio-political and literary agendas. Their socio-political agenda deals

with improving the lives of women, especially with regard to education and employment,

whereas their literary agenda is concerned with promoting female authorship and giving

women a chance to express themselves. I have chosen to study the EWJ and Victoria

Magazine because they are linked together by the Langham Place Group and the Victoria

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Press, as I shall discuss in the first chapter. Furthermore their content is quite similar, since

they are both concerned with female education and employment. Still there are important

differences between these two periodicals, for they put an emphasis on different issues and

cover a different time span. I would like to mention that I am very grateful to the researchers

of the NCSE (Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition) who have digitised the complete run of the

EWJ. Unfortunately, only a few volumes of the Victoria Magazine have been made available

online on Google Books. Still, I wanted to include them because a comparison between the

two periodicals seemed interesting and useful to me. Only by comparing the two magazines

and noting the differences, can one fully understand their socio-political and literary agendas.

The first chapter of this thesis consists of a brief overview of the feminist movement in

the Victorian period, more specifically the Langham Place Circle, the EWJ and the Victoria

Magazine. Secondly I discuss the contributors and distribution of poetry in the two

periodicals. Furthermore, the chapter ‘Topics of Poetry’ explores the diversity of the subjects

of the poems, and is subdivided into poetry about contemporary issues, religious, moral and

spiritual poetry, poetry about other writers or works, poetry about nature, love and death and

poetry with mythological and historical references. Finally, this thesis includes an analysis of

the poetry reviews and poetry articles in the EWJ and the Victoria Magazine. The appendix

offers 20 graphs and a list of all the poems, poetry reviews and articles in the two periodicals.

In order to easily find a poem, a review or an article on the list, I always refer to them with

their title, the magazine they were included in and their date of publication.

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2. The Feminist Movement in the Victorian Period

The nineteenth century was a time of conflict for women. On the one hand, traditional images

of womanhood were being solidified. Women’s lives were dominated by the ideology of the

separate spheres, or ‘domestic ideology’, which marked the separation of the female and male

sex, of the home and the workplace. Marriage was seen as the highest goal in a woman’s life,

and if you did not reach this goal, you were seen as a failure and could expect little

compassion from society (Fredeman 141). The ideal image of womanhood was that of ‘the

angel in the house’, a “doting and self-abnegating mother” (Perkin 86), and a “dependent

creature who pleased and fascinated her husband and devoted herself to him without reserve”

(Hellerstein et al. 122). On the other hand, the nineteenth century was also the time of the first

organised feminist movements and discussions about the ‘Woman Question’ in the press.

Feminists sought to construct a new positive female identity “defined by self-respect”

(Levine, Victorian Feminism 82) and launched campaigns about employment for women,

working conditions, educational opportunities, women’s property, divorce and suffrage. These

campaigns ultimately led, amongst other things, to the establishment of women’s colleges and

several acts which improved women’s legal and economic rights, for example the

Matrimonial Causes Act (1857), the Married Women’s Property Act (1882) and the Custody

of Infants Act (1873).

2.1. The Langham Place Circle

The English Woman’s Journal and Victoria Magazine are both situated in the wider

context of nineteenth century feminism. They have their origins in the Langham Place Circle,

an early feminist group established in the late 1850s. This London-based group of likeminded

women was devoted to promoting the rights of women and their reform work extended over

several areas of gender inequality: education, employment, sanitation and the law (Palmer

37). The Langhamites, including Barbara Bodichon, Bessie Rayner Parkes, Emily Faithfull,

Octavia Hill, Jessie Boucherett, Emily Davies, Elizabeth Garrett, Sophia Jex-Blake and

Adelaide Anne Procter, had varying opinions and interests, but overall their “mode of

feminism” may be described as “middle-class and liberal” (Palmer 37). The Langham Place

Group was set up by feminists who felt desperate and frustrated after the passing of the

unacceptable Marriage and Divorce Act in 1857 (Fredeman 140). Philippa Levine writes:

“[t]he passing of the Divorce Act made divorce in limited instances at least a theoretical

option for the misused wife, but even the small freedom thus won was in practice highly

12

restricted” (Victorian Feminism 136). The Langhamites introduced various initiatives,

including several campaigning committees, a library and a reading room for women, debating

societies and social clubs, and several feminist periodicals. Furthermore, several enterprises

that focus on female employment have their roots in the Langham Place Group: Maria Rye’s

law-copying office, where women copied legal documents, the Society for Promoting the

Employment of Women (SPEW) and the Victoria Press. SPEW, established by Barbara Leigh

Smith Bodichon and Bessie Rayner Parkes, was an organisation which promoted the

“[t]raining of women and their employment in industrial pursuits” (Levine, Victorian

Feminism 87). The society started an employment register to help women find work (Tusan

105). Furthermore they actively sought new types of employment that would be suitable for

women. William E. Fredeman explains that “[b]esides law-copying and clerical work, […] the

most practical proposal was that women should be trained as compositors” (142). This is

where the Victoria Press comes in. This revolutionary enterprise, led by Emily Faithfull and

named after the Queen, not only printed feminist periodicals and pamphlets, but also provided

employment for women. All the compositors working for the Victoria Press were women.

Working as a typesetter was one of the few respectable occupations for middle-class women

at the time. Moreover, Emily Faithfull believed that this task lay “within the physical

capacities of trained women” (Fredeman 148). The really heavy tasks, such as heavy lifting

and machine work, were taken over by men; a fact which critics gladly remarked upon

(Levine, Victorian Feminism 89). The Victoria Press printed the English Woman’s Journal

and even produced its own journal: the Victoria Magazine.

2.2. The English Woman’s Journal

The Langham Place Circle soon realised the importance of a periodical that would give their

feminist reform work a public voice. They recognised “that a journal that would promote,

record, and discuss their work would be vital to [their] success” (Palmer 37). The English

Woman’s Journal, which was founded by Bessie Rayner Parkes and funded by Barbara

Bodichon, ran from 1858 until 1864. It focused primarily on middle-class women’s

employment, but also dealt with issues such as education, sanitation, married women’s

property, female emigration and eventually the vote (Brake and Demoor 481). Hilary Fraser,

Stephanie Green and Judith Johnston write:

Its primary role was to enable public discussion about the conditions in which

women lived and worked, providing a space for both women and men to

13

legitimately explore and re-imagine the role of women in society in relation to

principles of social justice. (152)

Discussions on social conditions and the re-imagining of the roles of women in society took

place within the space of articles, essays, biographies, reviews, works of fiction, readers’

letters, news pages and advice columns. The quotation above points out that men were not

totally excluded from this venture. Indeed, the EWJ published several articles, essays, novel

excerpts and poems by male writers, journalists and poets.

When starting the EWJ, Parkes and Bodichon had to decide which direction they would

take it. They “had to make a choice between addressing the issues which had caused them to

start their own journal in the first place or seeking popularity and high circulation figures at

any cost” (Fraser et al. 81). It was George Eliot, a friend of Parkes, who believed that the

magazine should not advertise its female identity. As Schroeder points out, “[f]or Eliot and

other readers, an editorial tone and identity that proclaimed their femininity up front connoted

the trivial and unprofessional” (254). But Parkes was passionate about the special quality of

her journal. She wanted it to be an “intellectually independent and socially responsible

feminist journal rather than a celebrity-strapped commercial periodical that contained the

‘best writing of the day’” (Pusapati 601). In her article “A Review of the Last Six Years”,

Parkes writes that if she had chosen the English Woman’s Journal to become a popular

periodical, it would have meant “good-bye to the advocacy of any subject which would have

entailed a breath of ridicule ; good-bye to any thorough expression of opinion” (Parkes 365).

But Parkes’s disapproval of popular, sensational writings did not stop her from including

serial fiction and short stories. As Beth Palmer writes, she “did make compromises towards

the supposed desires of a popular audience, demonstrating that she understood that the

popular and the political were not as separable as her rhetoric asserts” (39).

The EWJ appeared monthly and cost one shilling. Like other shilling monthlies, such as

the Cornhill Magazine and Macmillan’s Magazine, it targeted a middle-class audience.

However, the EWJ specifically targeted a middle-class female audience. Many ladies who

read this periodical “were actively concerned in charity” (Fraser et al. 150). Notwithstanding

the fact that their readership “consisted principally of convinced feminists, they could also on

occasion clearly inspire converts to active participation” (Levine, “The Humanising

Influences” 296). And although this magazine never reached an extensive audience – it’s

circulation numbered only a few hundred – it’s importance in the history of women’s

publishing should certainly not be underestimated (Nestor 104). As Nestor indicates, it

provided a focal point for all the separate campaigns of the feminist movement. Furthermore,

14

the EWJ was used to “create the country’s first effective feminist network” (Herstein 24). And

what is more, the EWJ proved to be an example for several other feminist magazines, such as

the Englishwoman’s Review and the Victoria Magazine.

2.3. Victoria Magazine

As previously mentioned, the Victoria Press produced its own journal: the Victoria Magazine.

This shilling monthly was launched by Emily Faithfull and Emily Davies and ran from 1863

until 1880. It was named after Queen Victoria, “after the Sovereign to whose influence

English women owe so large a debt of gratitude, and in the hope also that the name would

prove a happy augury of victory” (Frawley 93). The Victoria Press was officially endorsed by

the Queen, who appointed Faithfull as ‘Printer and Publisher in Ordinary to her Majesty’ in

1862. Just like the English Woman’s Journal, it addressed issues like educational

opportunities, employment, welfare, health and legal rights for women.

However, one important difference between the two periodicals is that the Victoria

Magazine had “greater literary aspirations” (Phegley 154). As mentioned before, Parkes did

understand the importance of literature in her periodical. But she never made literature a

central feature in the EWJ. Jennifer Phegley points out that whereas the EWJ “had no

intention of competing with the popular literary monthlies, Victoria intended to do precisely

that” (173). By publishing first-rate male writers such as Thomas Hood, George MacDonald

and Thomas Adolphus Trollope, Faithfull and Davies wanted to market the Victoria as a

literary family magazine. Of course this did not alter the fact that the Victoria Magazine had a

profound interest in the women’s movement. In Palmer’s words, “[t]o discuss ‘Literature, Art

& Science’ was not to neglect the condition of women” (43). Closely linked to the greater

literary aspirations of the Victoria Magazine, is the difference in the audience the two

periodicals tried to reach. By including a greater amount of literature, the Victoria Magazine

“strove for a broader audience”. It wanted “to reach readers who were not immediately drawn

in the first instance to women’s political issues” (Fraser et al. 157). Phegley describes it as

follows: “[w]hile most family literary magazines made an effort to include ‘the ladies’,

Victoria made an effort to include the men of the house. Victoria was to be a family literary

magazine that happened to have a feminist agenda” (173). Of the three main Langham Place

periodicals – the English Woman’s Journal, Victoria Magazine and Alexandra Magazine – it

achieved “the broadest circulation and the best financial success” (Robinson 169).

15

3. Contributors of Poetry

By examining the contributors of poetry, a lot can be discovered about the magazines’ socio-

political and literary agendas. I shall first discuss data, before moving on to an analysis of

specific contributors. This chapter deals with the sex of contributors, with pseudonyms,

initials and anonymity and with the language of poetry.

3.1. Contributors of Poetry in the English Woman’s Journal

Of the 108 poems that appeared in the 78 issues of the English Woman’s Journal, 59 were

published under a female name, 25 under unidentified initials or names, 13 under a male name

and 11 were published anonymously (see graph 1). With ‘unidentified initials or names’ is

meant that the Victorian Poetry Network 1 has not been able to find out more about the writer

of that poem. It either means that that person has not published any other poetry under the

same signature, or that no biographical information has been traced. I would like to add that

four of the anonymous poems were in fact written by well-known poets. “The Wind amid the

Trees” (EWJ November 1861) was written by Bessie Rayner Parkes and reprinted in her

poetry volume Ballads and Songs (1863), “Grief” (EWJ March 1858) is one of Adelaide Anne

Procter’s poems, “The Lady’s Dilemma” (EWJ February 1860) is actually by Mary Sewell

and “Die Monduhr” (EWJ January 1862) was written by the German painter and poet Robert

Reinick.

The number of female contributors demonstrates the feminist character of the EWJ.

The feminist agenda is visible not only in the topics of articles and essays, but also in the sex

of the contributors of poetry. By not just having an equal amount of male and female poets,

but consciously publishing more women, the periodical wants to emphasise its interest in the

Woman Question. The EWJ wanted to do things differently from other periodicals that mainly

include poems by male poets. I have examined the poetry in the first issues of Dickens’s

1 I made my own database of the poetry in the EWJ and later compared it to the database of

the Victorian Poetry Network. Whereas I counted 108 poems, the VPN includes only 95

poems. The reason for this is that I have additionally incorporated 10 French poems, 1

German poem and the poems “An Appeal for the Cripples’ Home” by Alsager Hay Hill and

“The Voyage of the John Duncan from Gravesend to Dunedin” by Bessie R. Parkes.

Furthermore, in contrast to the VPN, which focuses on individual poems, this thesis also

examines the reviews of poetry and poetry articles in the EWJ.

16

periodical Household Words and have observed that from March 1850 until December 1851,

80 percent of the poems was written by male poets and only 20 percent by female poets

(Victorian Poetry Network). Moreover, Gary Simons mentions that “only 18% of Fraser’s

contributing poets were women” (2). The fact that the greatest part of the poems in the EWJ is

written by female poets also supports the Langham Place Group’s encouragement of work for

women. The magazine actively contributes to giving women employment in this way as well.

Furthermore, the EWJ wanted to give women a public voice, a forum in which they could

express themselves. This is why the periodical included female poetry in almost every single

issue. By not only publishing major poets like Adelaide Anne Procter, but also giving lesser-

known women a chance to publish their work, the EWJ shows its support of women’s writing.

The relatively small amount of anonymous poetry shows us how more and more women were

not afraid anymore to publish under their own names. Moreover, it is very likely that a great

number of the poems that were published under unidentified initials or names were in fact

written by women – a lot of the contributors to periodicals have unfortunately been forgotten

over time. Now we shall have a look at the format of the names of female contributors. There

are more women who use their full names, than those that use their initials, again

demonstrating that women increasingly published under their own full name. And those who

did use their initials, were so well-known already, that the readers would certainly have

known whose poems they were reading. Some examples are B.R.P. (Bessie Rayner Parkes),

A.A.P. (Adelaide Anne Procter) and M.M.H. (Matilda M. Hays). Only one woman in the

category of ‘poems by women’ published under a pseudonym: Sabine Casimire Amable

Voïart is Amable Tastu’s real name.

Let us examine some well-known female contributors of poetry in the EWJ, to try and

find out the reasons why they could have been included. For this chapter I chiefly based my

information on the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and the Victorian Poetry

Network. Isa Craig, a Scottish poet, journalist, editor and novelist, has contributed the greatest

amount of poems. Before becoming a frequent contributor to the EWJ, she published poems,

reviews and essays in the Scotsman, a well-established newspaper. Later on she became an

active member of the Langham Place Circle and SPEW, and she committed herself to

promoting women’s employment. She especially sympathised with the working-class, which

is apparent in her poetry. Above all Craig is known for her “Ode” on Burns, and one of the

poetry articles in the EWJ documents her winning a prize for it. Bessie Rayner Parkes has

contributed seven poems to her own periodical. She was born into a prosperous Unitarian

family with pronounced liberal sympathies and became a prominent feminist campaigner,

17

journalist and poet. Together with Barbara Bodichon she established the English Woman’s

Journal. Adelaide Anne Procter was a well-known English poet and member of the Langham

Place Circle and SPEW. Her great passions were helping the poor and homeless and

promoting the employment of women (Leighton and Reynolds 304). “A Lost Chord” is her

most famous poem. Christina G. Rossetti only contributed two poems to the EWJ, but it is

nevertheless important to mention her. She was a very famous English poet – but still

relatively unknown when she was published and reviewed in the EWJ – and contributed to

other magazines as well, such as the Germ, the Athenaeum and Macmillan’s Magazine.

Rossetti is especially known for her poem “Goblin Market”. The ODNB also mentions that

she did occasional voluntary work for a religious foundation dedicated to the improvement of

fallen women. Mary Carpenter was an English educationist and penal reformer. Although she

did not want to be seen as an advocate of women’s rights at first, she later publicly supported

women’s suffrage. Carpenter was also actively involved in campaigns focusing on female

education, on deprived and delinquent children and on prison reform. Frances Power Cobbe

contributed only one poem to the EWJ. However she must be included in this list of important

contributors, because she was a very well-known Irish writer and campaigner for women’s

rights. “She established a wide network of feminist friends” (ODNB), including members of

the Langham Place Circle. She wrote essays about the education of women, women’s

property, the problems of marriage life and suffrage. According to the Orlando Project, Isa

Blagden was “the author of five fairly sentimental yet often outspokenly feminist novels, a

small volume of poetry, and a number of essays and short stories”. Furthermore, “her writing

also frequently addressed the issues of women’s occupations and independence [and] female

artistic genius” (Orlando). Another socially active woman was Amelia B. Edwards. She was

an English novelist, journalist, traveller and Egyptologist, and was active as vice-president of

the Society for the Promotion of Women’s Suffrage. The EWJ also included poetry by the

French educator and feminist Marie Pape-Carpantier and by Isabella Fyvie, an English poet,

novelist and essayist who was also a member of the Langham Place Group and had Isa Craig

as her literary patron. And finally there is Matilda M. Hays, an English writer, journalist and

co-founder of the English Woman’s Journal. Adelaide Anne Procter’s poetry volume Legends

and Lyrics (1858) is dedicated to her. This list reveals that it was not only the sex of

contributors which was deemed important to the editors of the EWJ, but also the lives and

interests of the women they included. A great majority of the female poets actively supported

social reform and many of them were interested in the Woman Question. The list above

includes members of the Langham Place Circle and SPEW and social reformers, showing that

18

the EWJ linked women together in a feminist network. Despite all the different campaigns and

focal points, they have a common cause: to improve the lives of women. And even though a

great deal of their poetry is not explicitly feminist, it can still be seen as part of the early

feminist agenda to publish these women and give them a forum to express themselves.

Furthermore, by including the French Marie Pape-Carpantier, the EWJ wants to extend her

feminist network and emphasise the shared woman-experience. And this is not only the case

with feminists, but also with female poets who are not explicitly part of the women’s

movement. Poems by Louisa Fellows, Anna M. May, Jessie M. Saxby, Elise Moreau and

Delphine de Girardin are published to support women’s writing in England and other

countries, and to show that these English and French women are part of a larger female

literary tradition.

The function of the ten French poems (see graph 2) in the EWJ may be seen as

twofold: first of all they help to promote female authorship and poetry beyond Britain and

secondly, they are included to encourage the education of women. The first function is the

same for the two translated German poems, whereas the one original German poem in the

EWJ (“Die Monduhr”) has the additional function of educating women, specifically in foreign

languages. This was not the kind of instruction women had been receiving for decades.

During the Regency and Victorian era, the education of upper- and upper-middle class girls

consisted of the acquiring of accomplishments, taught by a governess. Many of these

accomplishments can be described as superficial, showy and trifling. They included playing

the piano, speaking a little French and German, painting and fancy needlework. All of these

would make the girl ready for the moment when she would come out into society, in search of

a husband. The aim of educating a lady was “not to make her learned but a rational and

prudent wife and mother” (McDermid 109). Especially French, German and Italian were

considered “ornamental accomplishments” (K. Hughes 41). The EWJ meant to instruct

women in French, but not as a showy accomplishment. The editors wanted women to have

real knowledge of the language by presenting them with poetry. They would really learn

something for themselves, and not just in order to become a better wife or mother. In their

free time, they would be able to read and appreciate French poetry, which would certainly

mean a personal enrichment.

The next aspect to examine is the male contributors to the English Woman’s Journal.

Who were they and what did they contribute to the periodical’s image? The EWJ included

some very well-known male poets to attract readers. Walter Thornbury, whose name appears

with three poems, was a poet, art critic and author who had already established his reputation

19

by regularly contributing to other periodicals, such as the Athenaeum. And John George

Fleets name would also have been familiar to readers, since he was the founder of the Church

Sunday School Institute and a well-known hymn writer. Three other well-known poets were

Antoine-Vincent Arnault, Arnaud Berquin and Alexander Soumet. These three Frenchmen

had already died before being published in the EWJ, but their names would certainly have

been remembered. They were dramatists, poets and authors. Moreover, Arnault and Soumet

were members of the Académie Française. These three names would have enhanced the

quality of poetry in the EWJ and given it a more international appearance. As I have

mentioned before, French poems also supported the education of women. Furthermore, the

magazine published a poem by Alsager Hay Hill in 1862. At that time he was not yet well-

known, but a few years later he would become an important English social reformer who

focused on poor law reform and employment issues affecting men and women. Thus his

social work matched the EWJ’s vision quite well. About John Churchill I have not been able

to find much, except that he published his poetry volume The Child of the Fairies and Other

Poems in 1864, the same year in which the EWJ published his poems “Little Fairy” and “Miss

Lily”. This would mean that the editors of the EWJ wanted to give new poets a chance as

well. “Publishing poems in advance of a volume’s release was an effective means of

promoting new work” (L.K. Hughes, Cambridge Introduction 92), both for new poets and

poets who had already established a literary reputation. Since the EWJ only printed twelve

poems by eight male contributors, it is safe to say that the magazine explicitly wanted to focus

on female writers and their works. However, the editors would have realised it was necessary

to include some male poets to attract a broader readership.

3.2. Contributors of Poetry in Victoria Magazine

In the 24 issues of Victoria Magazine that I have examined, 11 poems were written by

women, 7 by men, 4 were published under unidentified initials or names and 3 were published

anonymously (see graph 3). Even though 24 issues are not as representative as the 78 issues

of the EWJ, it is clear that the Victoria Magazine aimed at a broader audience. It wanted to

appeal to both male and female readers, and thus published a greater amount of male poets.

But still, by publishing slightly more female poets, it emphasised its interest in women. The

Victoria Magazine wanted to give women a chance to publish their works and to hold a

proper place within the public sphere. In contrast to the EWJ, the contributors of poetry in

Victoria Magazine are all mentioned by their full name, even the female poets. The

explanation for this could be that Emily Faithfull wanted to attract readers with well-known

20

names. The following poets had already established a reputation by contributing to other

periodicals or by publishing poetry volumes. Christina Rossetti and Isa Craig have already

been mentioned in the section on contributors in the EWJ. Mary Mapes Dodge was an

American children’s writer and editor, best known for Hans Brinker (1865), which won an

award from the French Academy. Josephine Pollard was an American hymn writer, author

and poet and a founding member of Sorosis, the first professional women’s club in the United

States. Furthermore, in 1863 Victoria Magazine published poetry by George MacDonald, a

Scottish poet, novelist, lecturer, children’s writer and preacher. At that time he had not yet

achieved an “international reputation” (ODNB), but his name was already quite well known.

And finally there is Thomas Hood, a very well-known English poet, author and humourist

who regularly contributed to several magazines. It is obvious that in comparison to the EWJ,

the poets of Victoria Magazine were less active in social reform issues, but instead had a

greater literary reputation. There are a few exceptions however, such as Isa Craig and

Josephine Pollard. Moreover, many American poets, like Kate Hillard, Mary Barker Carter

Dodge, Ella Dietz, Mary Mapes Dodge and Josephine Pollard, appear in Emily Faithfull’s

magazine, whereas the EWJ primarily works with British – and to some extent French –

poets. It could be that Faithfull and Davies wanted to give their periodical a more

international (and not just European) image, and that they wished to emphasise that poets in

Britain and the US share a literary tradition.

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4. Distribution of poetry

The distribution of poetry in the two periodicals may tell us something about how important

poetry was to the editors. The following questions shall be asked: how many poems are

included in each volume? Is poetry always included? Is there an increase or decrease in the

publication of poetry throughout the years? If so, then what could have caused it? Are there

any differences between the EWJ and Victoria Magazine?

4.1. Distribution of Poetry in the English Woman’s Journal

As can be derived from the fourth graph, the editors of the English Woman’s Journal decided

to include poetry in each volume. What is more, they included it in every single issue. This

shows the importance they attached to it. As I have mentioned earlier, Bessie Parkes realised

that literature, and specifically poetry, could help to attract more readers. However, at first,

she shared George Eliot’s opinion that less emphasis on literature was better. In a letter to

Parkes in 1857 she wrote:

For my own taste I should say, the more business you get into the journal – the

more statements of philanthropical movements and social facts, and the less

literature, the better. Not because I like philanthropy and hate literature, but

because I want to know about philanthropy and don’t care for second-rate

literature. (Haight 379)

This is probably the reason why the first six volumes (March 1858 - February 1861) only

incorporate six to eight poems. But then we get ten to eleven poems in volumes 7 to 10

(March 1861 - February 1863). It is then that they started to realise that including more poetry

could increase the circulation of the magazine? This is also the moment when they started

publishing French poetry and male poets (see graphs 5 and 6). Did the editors hope attract

more readers with this strategy? And more importantly, did this strategy work? The

Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition describes how in January 1859 the EWJ had 400 annual

subscribers and was selling 250 copies monthly. By January 1860 this number had increased

to 1250 copies a month. This increase is attributed to the EWJ’s connection to the National

Association for the Promotion of Social Science (NAPSS), which used the periodical as its

official organ. This indeed seems like a more logical reason than the increase in poetry, since

the EWJ only started including more poetry in 1861, and it already reached a broader

audience in 1860. Thus the inclusion of poetry was perhaps not a major attraction to readers

after all. What can be linked to the distribution of poetry, however, is the financial trouble of

22

the last two years. The NCSE writes that “[b]y April 1862 circulation was still around a

thousand copies a month but there are signs that [the journal] was running into financial

trouble”, since it had to borrow £200 in order to pay its contributors. In May 1863 there was

even a discussion “as to whether it should be permitted to continue” (NCSE). One can indeed

notice a slight decrease in poetry in volumes 11 and 12 (March 1863 - February 1864). Is this

because they did not have the money to pay contributors anymore? The editors considered

poetry to be less important than articles and essays on social reform. This could explain why

the number of poems was the first thing to be reduced. Finally, the last volume includes a

great amount of poetry. It could be that the EWJ wanted to end on a high note, since – despite

Parkes’s personal ambivalent feelings towards poetry – it “could enhance the cultural value

and prestige of the periodical itself” (L.K. Hughes, “Wellesley Index” 94) and was still

regarded as the ‘highest’ form of literature, even though novels became increasingly valued.

The distribution of poems by women is more or less consistent. Graph 7 shows that

volumes 4, 5 and 12 only include two to three female poets. The reasons for that are first of all

that these volumes contain less poetry overall and secondly that in these volumes there are

more poems written by authors with unidentified names or initials. Furthermore, volume 10 is

characterised by a strikingly high number of poems by women. This volume was published

after two others which incorporated many poems by male writers, and so one could be

inclined to think that the EWJ wanted to show it was still more interested in women and

women’s poetry.

4.2. Distribution of Poetry in Victoria Magazine

In the Victoria Magazine the poems appear quite irregularly. Whereas every single issue of

the EWJ contains poetry, this is certainly not the case for Faithfull and Davies’s magazine.

Graph 8 shows that in volume 11 (May - October 1868) only one poem was published,

whereas volumes 1 (May - October 1863) and 30 (November 1877 - April 1878) include nine

to ten poems. So we may mistakenly infer that poetry was not always as important to the

editors. However, volume 11 (May - October 1868) does contain three poetry reviews, instead

of just one in volumes 1 and 7. Furthermore this volume also boasts a rather long poetry

article of thirteen pages, which deals with the figure of the nightingale in the poetry of male

poets. So even though Palmer writes that the Victoria Magazine “made the serial novel a

central feature” (Palmer 43), it is certainly the case that poetry held an important place in the

periodical as well.

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The graphs on the distribution of poetry by women and men (see graphs 9 and 10)

confirm what Emily Davies wrote in a letter to Barbara Bodichon on 12 March 1863: “[w]e

mean to employ chiefly men at first, & not to press our special subject till we have got a

character. Then, when we have once gained a hearing, we shall give the public as much of it

as they will swallow” (Murphy and Raftery 43). This was one of the tactics to “confound

gendered expectations” (Palmer 40), alongside the fact that Davies’s and Faithfull’s names

did not appear as editors on the first few volumes. And so the graphs show that the magazine

indeed started by publishing male poets to attract an audience, and that towards the end they

put a greater emphasis on their interest in women, by publishing more female poets. The

editors of the Victoria Magazine believed that this was the only way they could compete with

mainstream monthlies like the Cornhill and Macmillan’s Magazine, which mainly published

texts by male authors. Including more male poets was the Victoria Magazine’s way of

adapting to the increasingly competitive periodical market. This stands in stark contrast to the

EWJ, since Bessie Parkes “always maintained that it had never been the intent of the editors to

compete with the major magazines of the period” (Herstein 25).

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5. Topics of Poetry

Since the topics of poetry in the English Woman’s Journal and Victoria Magazine are quite

similar, I will discuss them together. The topics are subdivided into poetry about

contemporary issues, religious, moral and spiritual poetry, poetry about other writers or

works, poetry about death, nature and love and poetry with mythological and historical

references. Differences between the two magazines can be deduced from graphs 11 and 12.

Whereas religious and spiritual poetry make up the bulk of the poems in the EWJ, the Victoria

Magazine puts more emphasis on love poetry.

5.1. Poetry about Contemporary Issues

This chapter takes a closer look at the poetry that explicitly deals with the issues and news

items of the nineteenth century, more specifically the period between 1850 and 1880. This is

the kind of poetry that tells us a lot about what happened at that time and about how people

conceived particular events, ideologies and changes. This poetry “functioned as one of several

interpretive frameworks for public events during the nineteenth century” (Houston 241). The

majority of these poems were written by female poets, showing that “many women poets

[engaged] fully with the issues of their day” (Miles 11). Poetry about contemporary times can

be divided into poems about the Woman Question, modernity and other current affairs.

5.1.1. Poetry about the Woman Question

In the English Woman’s Journal, the six poems that are explicitly linked to the periodical’s

socio-political agenda are those that deal with the Woman Question. They thematise key

issues such as divorce, property, education, gender equality, female roles and the emigration

of unmarried women. The feminist poem “Lines Suggested by More than One Recent

Domestic History” (EWJ June 1858) was written by Harriet Grote (signed H.G.) in November

1855 and deals with divorce and property. Harriet Grote was a woman of letters and the wife

of George Grote, a historian and politician. The ODNB writes:

Harriet sympathized with the organized feminist movement as it emerged

during the 1850s and 1860s. […] Meanwhile she supported reform of the

married woman's property law and extension of the suffrage to women, helped

found the Society of Female Artists (1857), and regretted not being thirty years

younger and leader of the women's movement.

25

The poem, written in 1855, is set up against the background of the campaign for property and

divorce laws, which ultimately led to the first Marriage and Divorce Act in 1857. As I have

written in the introduction on the Langham Place Circle, the freedom this act won turned out

to be highly restricted. The title suggests that newspapers had reported about unhappy women

who wanted a divorce but could not obtain one. One case that undoubtedly inspired Harriet

Grote to write her poem is the Caroline Norton case. Since the poem thematises many of the

issues Caroline Norton faced, I am going to discuss them simultaneously. The poem states

that a marriage may seem happy from the outside, but in reality husband and wife are utterly

miserable. An aching heart cannot be seen, especially not when people put on a “cheerful

mien” (EWJ June 1858, 244, l. 6). They may have fallen in love with each other in the

beginning; there may even have been passion. But this soon passes and what follows is life-

long regret. Although Caroline’s marriage to George Norton was never passionate, but an

absolute disaster from the very beginning, the words “bitter drop”, “mortal cup” (l. 19) and

“lengthened martyrdom without rewards” (l. 25) can be applied to describe their marriage.

The ODNB mentions that her husband “resorted to physical violence to end their disputes”.

When she went to visit her sister in 1836, “George had the children taken off to an

undisclosed location, and barred the house to Caroline” (Shanley 23). He wanted to be

separated, and told her that if she refused, he would sue her “on the grounds of alienation of

affection by Lord Melbourne” (Shanley 24). Lord Melbourne was an MP and a regular visitor

of the house. It is not clear whether his relationship with Caroline was sexual or merely

platonic. Shanley writes: “[t]he terms George proposed were that the children would live with

him, Caroline would receive no allowance from him, and she would live with her brother. Not

surprisingly, Caroline found these terms unacceptable” (Shanley 24). George Norton decided

to sue Melbourne for ‘criminal conversation’ with his wife and the case was brought before

court. Even though Caroline was not allowed to give evidence, because she was a married

woman and was thus “legally disbarred from doing so” (ODNB), the case was quickly

dismissed in her favour. Her situation clearly shows that the consequence of “man’s impious

agency” (l. 31) is female misery. A woman can “ne’er seek release nor remedy” (l. 37), for

she cannot get a divorce and must stay with her husband until “she sins or dies” (l. 39).

Nothing could shield Caroline ‘’gainst contumely or harm” (l. 42), not even the law. For a

woman is the powerless victim of “unequal doom” (l. 45): she cannot ask for a divorce,

whereas her husband can since he is helped by “judicial might” (245, l. 58). She is “prisoned

in her legal cage” (l. 65) and completely controlled by her husband. He “withholds her

heritage, and ties her hand” (l. 66). Women cannot even hold “a portion of their rightful gold”

26

(l. 75), because all their property belongs to their husbands. And indeed, when Caroline’s

mother died in 1851, it was George Norton who “became possessed of a life interest in

Caroline’s share of her father’s small estate” (ODNB). The law dictated that married women

“had no legal right to own property in [their] own name”. Women had no legal identity, which

meant, amongst other things, that they “had no right to any earnings that [they] might acquire”

(ODNB). In the last stanzas, the speaker asks if nothing can be done and even suggests that

women themselves do not seem to care to terminate their degradation. Or else, they would

have long since “risen in the scale of social honor and domestic weal” (l. 99). The speaker

urges women to never give up until the law is changed. But Caroline did not give up. She

began a campaign to change the lot of married women, which focused on the issue of property

rights. In June 1855, five months before Harriet Grote’s poem was written, Caroline published

“A Letter to the Queen on Lord Cranworth’s Marriage and Divorce Bill”, “which argued the

case for property rights for divorced and separated women” (ODNB). Her campaign

eventually led to the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857. In conclusion, Caroline Norton’s case

revolved around the legal identity of married women, divorce and property. Her campaign

meant the start of several laws which improved the married life of many women in the United

Kingdom. Since her case was continuously in the newspapers, it can be said without a doubt

that her story influenced Harriet Grote to write her poem.

The second poem that deals with the Woman Question is “Minerva Medica. For E.B.”

by Bessie Rayner Parkes (EWJ July 1859). It is dedicated to Elizabeth Blackwell and is

directly linked to the EWJ’s support of women’s education and employment. Elizabeth

Blackwell was the first woman to graduate with a medical degree in the United States (1849)

and the first woman on the General Medical Council (1859), the register of medical

practitioners in the United Kingdom. In her autobiography she wrote that “she did not wish to

become dependent on a man through marriage” (ODNB). The poem itself evokes the

mythological figure of Minerva Medica, the Roman goddess of medicine and doctors. It

describes how in ancient Rome, people came from far away to visit the temple of Minerva and

to worship her. However, the temple, shrines and altar are dark and bare now. People no

longer come to worship the goddess and ask her to be cured. It seems as if her statue asks

people to worship her again, so that she can cure them once more. And even though people

have forgotten about her, and about what she stood for, her statue still stands and seems to

make a mute appeal: “Give helpful blessing, all ye Lands, / On Women bent to heal" (EWJ

July 1859, 325, ll. 39-40). The following lines refer to the historical context of ancient female

medics: “And even what she nobly taught, / And what she symbolled then, / Is banished out

27

of human thought / And quite forgot by men” (ll. 33-6). What had been “banished out of

human thought” is the fact that women could be physicians as well. As Holt N. Parker writes,

“[t]he history of women as professionals in medicine does not begin in America in 1849 with

Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910), the first woman to earn an M.D. in modern times. […]

Women physicians, though undoubtedly only a small percentage of the medical personnel,

were an everyday part of the ancient world” (131). Although midwives were much more

common, there were a number of female doctors in ancient Rome and Greece. Bessie Rayner

Parkes has used the figure of Minerva Medica to encourage women to follow in Elizabeth

Blackwell’s footsteps. She wanted to emphasise that women should not be held back by

patriarchal society, but that they should strive to get some kind of training, so that they have

more options in later life. Having received training would mean a chance on a job, which in

turn would provide the woman with much more independence. During the Victorian period,

women without means of supporting themselves were entirely dependent upon their husbands,

fathers or brothers. The EWJ also published essays which voiced the same ideas about

women’s education and employment as Parkes’s poem. This demonstrates that “popular

fiction and political essay might engage with the same social issues, albeit in different ways”

(Palmer 37). Poetry can even be explicitly linked to essays, for in April 1858 the EWJ had

published an essay on Elizabeth Blackwell.

The third poem is called “The Voyage of the John Duncan from Gravesend to Dunedin”

and was written by Bessie Parkes and published in the EWJ in May 1863. It reports on the

ship called “John Duncan”, which sailed from England to New Zealand, carrying unmarried

women to start a new life. During the Victorian period, there were many “redundant”

unmarried women because there were not enough men. They were marginalised and seen as

failures and deviations from the prevailing domestic ideology. Nan Dreher explains that “[t]he

1851 Census initiated sex statistics and counted an excess of 500,000 women in Britain. This

surplus was attributed to structural factors, including male emigration and employment

abroad, higher male mortality, and a later male age of marriage” (3). Some reformers

suggested the emigration of unmarried women, since there was a “shortage of women in the

settlement colonies” (Dreher 3). The women of the Langham Place Group and the EWJ had a

central role in this debate. Maria Rye, a prominent member of the Langham Place Cirlce

founded the Female Middle-Class Emigration Society (FMCES) in 1861. Dreher writes:

It was the only feminist emigration society, devoted to helping educated

women find professional work abroad. Between 1862 and 1882, it lent money

to send 302 women abroad, 113 of whom reported back to the Society, most of

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them successfully. […] The EWJ was its primary forum, printing articles and

speeches and encouraging ‘all who have anything to say on the subject, any

experience or knowledge to contribute,’ to participate. (5)

In 1862, Maria Rye accompanied “about one hundred emigrant women” (Diamond 93) to

New Zealand. She believed that these unmarried educated middle-class women would “not

only be a relief to England, but an actual benefit to the colonies themselves, —an elevation of

morals being the inevitable result” (Rye 168). The poem describes how the pilgrims, “for

distant pastures bound” (EWJ May 1863, 216, l. 14) say goodbye to their family and friends.

When the ship is making its journey, the people who stay behind are anxiously waiting for

news. At last good news comes from across the sea: “Kind words of thoughtful greeting sent /

A cheerful tale to tell; / A whisper thrilled across the breadth / Of earth and sea—‘All's well’”

(ll. 33-36). This poem again demonstrates the close link between the poetry and the essays in

the EWJ – in other words between its socio-political and literary agendas – since this issue is

also discussed in the articles “Emigration as a Preventive Agency” (EWJ January 1859) and

“Emigration for Educated Women” (EWJ March 1861).

The following poem is an extract from “Sappho” and was written by Mary Hume. The

first stanza consists of an appeal to men: “True men and brethren! deem not woman’s gain /

Shall be your loss!” (EWJ September 1862, 19, ll. 2-3). Men should not think that women

getting more rights, means that they will get fewer. Then follows the rhetorical question if

slave or free labour gives the best results, implying that giving women their freedom would

result in advantages for men as well. The speaker asks them to be just and see the difference

between true love, that “yearns to give, to serve, to bless”, and self-love, that “[loves] to rule,

be worshipped, and possess” (ll. 8-9). The poem stresses that each of the sexes has its

qualities, and that each has what the other lacks. They are equal because they are both

superior and inferior to one another. If a man would give his wife more rights, she would no

longer be a “petted queen”, “a pastime to embrace in idle hours” or “a helpless load to bear”

(ll. 18-20). Instead she would be a true mate, who would help and comfort him. She will not

need his help, but she will want it, because she loves him. The speaker emphasises that

women should be free, but not “for [their] pride or self-will’s sake” (20, l. 42), but so that they

can stand beside their husbands and serve and adore them better. The title of the poem refers

to the ancient Greek female poet Sappho, whose name is associated with lesbianism. Since

she wrote during a time when poetry was predominantly a male affair, and has been an

inspiration for later female poets, for example Letitia Elizabeth Landon and Michael Field,

she can be regarded as the literary foremother. The EWJ published this poem because it

29

articulates many feminist ideas that are expressed in the essays and articles of the periodical.

Furthermore it stresses that women’s rights would ultimately lead to a lot of advantages for

men as well, which would certainly have been an important and effective argument.

The poem “The Lady’s Dilemma” (EWJ February 1860) was published anonymously

in the EWJ, but was written by Mary Sewell. It deals with the education of lower- and middle-

class girls. In the poem a lady needs a few shirts for her son, who is suddenly going abroad.

Her lady’s maid tells her that there is no woman around who can make a shirt fit for a

gentleman. The Lady does not believe this and goes to town herself to look for someone.

When she comes across a family with four daughters, she thinks she has found “a nest of

workwomen” (398, l. 29). However, it turns out that they can crochet, embroider and knit, but

cannot make a shirt. The mother tells her that her daughters have so many other things to

learn at school besides sewing. The lady is astonished and says: “But needlework should

surely take the very foremost place / To fail in that, must ever be a woman's great disgrace”

(399, ll. 37-8). The mother agrees and complains that she is not happy with their education,

for they get “lessons in the Grammar rules, and History, and Spheres” (l. 43), but they get

“too genteel to nil a humble station / They get too proud for servant’s work” (ll. 46-7). The

lady acknowledges that those are useful things, but that above all they should learn how to

“darn and stitch, work button-holes, and make and mend” (l. 53). She tries another house and

meets a seamstress, who has so much work to do that she cannot help the lady. The

seamstress tells her that “ladies do not work themselves, and poor folks do not learn” (l. 69),

and that she finds it strange that only fancy needlework is taught at school. Eventually the

lady goes to the school and hopes to find some help. However, the children are taught

geography, history, grammar and mathematics, but not plain sewing, because the inspectors,

the “learned Gentlemen”, are coming soon and they “consider needlework beneath their

observation” (400, ll. 123-4). The school’s governess wished that ladies were made inspectors

too, “to give importance to the things that women ought to do” (l. 128). Finally the lady goes

back home and reconciles her mind to what she had opposed before, being that “we must have

machines to sew, now hands can sew no more” (l. 140). This poem can be read as a critique

on the new kinds of education for lower- and middle-class girls in the Victorian period.

Reformers wanted to make the education of girls and boys more equal and with a greater

focus on intellectual subjects rather than domestic chores. Sewing used to be at the heart of a

girl’s education, but basic manual skills were increasingly neglected. Although the EWJ was

in favour of new (intellectual) educational opportunities for girls, it did include a few essays

that acknowledged the concerns some people had about this new kind of schooling. The writer

30

of the essay “Training Schools for Female Servants”, which was published in the EWJ in

March 1859, argues that “[i]t is urged with much force that the teaching which is afforded in

such schools is much too abstract, too far removed from those practical duties of life which

girls will be required to perform when their school-days are at an end” (Alban 2). The same

issue is addressed in an essay from July 1862, called “On the Education of Pauper Girls”,

which states the following:

In another large boarding-school for girls, very fine needlework is taught; and

thus it may be supposed that a means of earning a livelihood is put in the girl's

hands; first-rate needlework is produced in the school, which adds to its funds ;

but yet the girls are not trained to be good needlewomen, because, in order to

procure more quickly well-made articles, each girl learns one part of it only,

and may thus be entirely confined to making the wristbands of shirts without

learning to make the other parts or to put together a whole garment. (“On the

Education” 325-6)

Both the essays and the poem were included to show both sides of the new kinds of education,

so that the readers could make up their own mind about them. They put the new reforms into

perspective and demonstrate the EWJ’s realisation that there is certainly room for

improvement. Moreover, it goes without saying that not all early feminists had the same ideas

about education. Levine points out that “debates raged – even within the feminist camp – as to

the nature of that education and how far it should conform to or differ from that prescribed for

boys and men” (Victorian Feminism 26).

The Victoria Magazine has included a poem that fits into the category of ‘Poetry about

the Woman Question’ as well. “Victoria Regina” is the opening poem of the magazine (VM

May 1863) and was written by the editor, Emily Faithfull. It is not only a tribute to the Queen,

but it is also linked to the periodical’s name and its socio-political and literary agendas.

Phegley writes that Victoria Magazine was named after Queen Victoria, since she represented

the periodical’s ideal of the woman who is able to be a powerful female public figure, a

proper wife and a good mother at the same time (Phegley 23). This idea is represented in the

poem, in which Queen Victoria is praised for her qualities as a queen, an empress, a monarch

and a mother. Using Queen Victoria as the ideal of the woman who is able to combine the

public and private sphere was one of Victoria Magazine’s strategies to convince middle-class

women to participate in public life. The periodical helped women make the transition by

giving them guidelines on how to be a professional woman who is no threat to the social order

(Phegley 153) and who is able to maintain her “social acceptability within the existing ideals

31

of Victorian womanhood” (Phegley 194). However, the name of Queen Victoria would not

only have been chosen as a representation of ‘the ideal woman’, but also to attract a broader

audience, since the Queen was very popular with the middle-class.

The poems about the Woman Question, of which the majority was explicitly published

with the name of the poet, express new – and often revolutionary – ideas. Hughes draws

attention to the fact that “[s]igned topical poems could sanction the expression of views that

might be problematical in leaders and middles, since poems were viewed both as public but

also as highly personal statements” (106-7). Furthermore, these poems are certainly not

problematic in view of their publication within the context of feminist periodicals.

5.1.2. Poetry about Modernity

The poems that are classified under ‘poetry about modernity’ deal with modern

communication, pollution, developments in farming, astronomy and photography, and

thematise the changing world of the nineteenth century. “The Track of the Telegraph” (EWJ

October 1858) by Louisa Fellows describes the telegraph as a “wondrous wire” (100, l. 1) that

connects people from the old and new world, from the United Kingdom and the United States.

Just like Prometheus gave fire to mankind, the telegraph, which is compared to “the angelic

song of seraph hosts” (101, l. 70), will bring knowledge, peace and good will, which in turn

will lead to a better understanding between the two nations. Louisa Fellows wrote this poem

on 18 August 1858, two days after the first telegraph messages had been sent by the

transatlantic telegraph cable. The sentiments of unity and connection in the poem greatly

reflect those first messages. Huurdeman writes that the very first message was sent on 16

August 1858 “by the company directors in the United States to those in England, proclaiming

in high spirits: England and America are united. Glory to God in the highest; on earth, peace

and good will toward men” (131-2). The expression “Peace and good will” was literally

inserted into the poem (l. 71). Those sentiments were repeated in the telegram President

James Buchanan sent as a response to Queen Victoria’s message: “[m]ay the Atlantic

telegraph, under the blessing of heaven, prove to be a bond of perpetual peace and friendship

between the kindred nations, and an instrument destined by Divine Providence to diffuse

religion, civilization, liberty, and law throughout the world” (Black 26). This poem also

demonstrates that the poetry in the EWJ can be closely linked to its other material, for in

November 1859 the periodical published an article called “The Rise and Progress of

Telegraphs”.

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In the second poem “The River Thames” (EWJ April 1859) by J.B.S., the issue of

water pollution is being addressed. At first we get a peaceful picture of the Thames and its

surroundings. Several images of nature are being introduced. Then the tone changes: what

used to float on the river was a swan and a little fisher’s boat, but now the river must “bear the

barge’s freight” (105, l. 60). The barge represents trade, industry and civilization. The

presence of humans is characterised by words such as ‘steamer’, ‘factories’, ‘pollution’,

‘dome’, ‘tower’, ‘bridges’ and ‘ships. With humankind came the destroyers of nature: the

“busy town” (l. 65), “smoking factories” (l. 68) and “deep pollution” (l. 69). The speaker

laments that the water is no longer pure. In the last lines the poem expresses the hope that

there will be redemption for the river. That love and truth shall conquer this crime of

humankind and that people will realise that they need the river and should not pollute it. By

opposing dark civilization and pure nature, the poem clearly criticises the industrial revolution

and all of its consequences. This poem is set against the wider context of the aftermath of the

industrial revolution. It was written in 1859, when people finally began to understand the

consequences of all those years of spilling sewage. It would take until 1865 before they

started cleaning up the pollution. Leslie Rosenthal describes how “in response to increasing

pressure to act on river pollution […], in 1865, the Royal Commission on Rivers Pollution

Prevention was established” (18). Because the issue of pollution was so present in the popular

press, the EWJ decided to publish a poem that presented an artistic rendering of this topic.

“The Meeting of M. Verrier and Adams, Independently Discoverers of the New Planet/

Neptune, at Oxford, June, 1847” was written by Mary Carpenter. It thematises scientific

progress and discusses the discovery of the planet Neptune. The poem praises the “noble pair”

(EWJ June 1863, 251, l. 8) who “first discerned the rays / As yet unseen, of the dim distant

star” (ll. 9-10). The fact that the poem was published sixteen years after the event raises

questions about why it was included in the 1860s. Was that decade characterised by a

renewed interest in astrology? Or did the editors of the EWJ wish to exhibit their interest in

various subjects, including science? The fourth poem, “An Appeal for the Cripples’ Home”

(EWJ September 1863), was written by Alsager Hay Hill, who would later become an

important social reformer who focused on poor law reform. The speaker wished that cripples

could have just one good day without toil or pain; a day on which they could look into the

sun, touch flowers and feel the wind. He addresses well-off people and condemns them for

not caring about the poor and the crippled. Through the image of a hopeless crippled child,

the speaker tries to stir up sympathy for his cause. The child wished it could work, but it can’t

and so it would rather be dead. Fortunately there is a safe haven for these people: the cripples’

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home. By stating that “he that gives to others’ need himself hath made a gain” (260, l. 68), he

asks well-off people to spare some money to support this place. During the Victorian period,

cripples and disabled people could count on very little sympathy. Reformers like Hill tried

their best to improve the lives of these people with the lowest social status. This poem is

classified as a poem dealing with modernity, since homes for disabled people started to appear

in urban environments during the nineteenth century. The poem underlines the periodical’s

social involvement and emphasises that the education and employment of women were not

the only issues it was involved with.

“To the Lord of the Manner of Merdon” was written in 1857 and published in the

EWJ in September 1862. It is actually a petition in verse and wishes to bring a certain cause to

the attention of the readers. First we get a description of what the lives of the farmers used to

be like. They used to work and walk in nature and lead a peaceful life, just like their

forefathers. However, things have changed recently, for it’s the “Nineteenth Age” (57, l. 40)

and they are controlled by “High Farming” (l. 44), which meant improved methods and more

profits. Their old lives are gone and instead there are platforms, railings and straight lines.

The farmers ask the Lord to spare some shady spots and nooks where they “may nourish, safe

and free” (l. 56), so that old Hampshire will retain some of its old charm. In return they will

thank him with prayers. The poem was published in the EWJ five years after it was written,

but it would still have been relevant, for high farming was a widespread phenomenon from

about 1840 to 1880 (Perry 156). By saying that the farmers do not have any free time left and

that all the “green bowers” (l. 52) have been swept away to make room for agriculture, the

poem criticises this new method. The final poem in this category, “Set in Brilliants” by F.

Schütze, was published in the EWJ in March 1864 and thematises photography, and in

specific the ‘carte de visite’. This was a small photograph, the size of a visiting card, that was

given to friends and acquaintances when going on a social visit, and “brought affordable

portrait photography into the homes of ordinary people for the first time” (Wichard 5). The

poem first presents us with a description of the royal custom to have portraits made as “a

mark of special grace” (16, l. 2). Those portraits are always framed in a splendid case, set in

brilliants. The speaker has also received a portrait, but it is neither a royal gift, nor framed in a

splendid case. It is a simple carte de visite depicting a lovely young woman, but that does not

mean it is not special. The speaker praises photography by saying that the interplay of light

and shadow is much more effective than the work of a courtly painter. It is said that “when

God’s sun pourtrays / The ‘human face divine,’ / Deep characters’ most hidden traits / From

inwards, outwards shine” (17, ll. 25-8). Paint could never depict the girl’s inward qualities or

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her eyes which seem to answer back to him. This photograph may not be a portrait of a

Queen, but it is a picture of his queen. And although the carte de visite did not come with a

splendid case, the speaker has framed it with a case “set in brilliants” (l. 56). This poem has

captured the feeling of the age, when photography was beginning its rise to great popularity.

People were lyrical about this new invention, which presented them with so many new

possibilities.

These six poems are a way of dealing with modern inventions and issues, and present us

with an artistic commentary. They show that poetry, which is always written in a certain time

period, may explicitly interact with its particular context. Furthermore, they would have given

the readers of the EWJ something other than love- or religious poetry. And finally they show

that feminist periodicals were not only interested in topics related to the Woman Question, but

in progression and change in general.

5.1.3. Poetry about Other Current Affairs

The following poems were written as a response to certain events which had nothing to do

with the Woman Question, describing what happened and giving voice to the thoughts and

feelings people had about them. In November 1859, the EWJ published the poem “Italian

Patriotic Song”, which was written in Bristol in May of the same year. It is situated in the

wider context of the Italian unification. The speaker of the poem urges the people of Italy to

unite and stand up against the “Double Eagle” (170, l. 4), which is the symbol of the Austrian

Empire. They should “lift on high the flag of Freedom” (l. 5) and support the “gallant king”

(6) with ‘Sardinia’ as their watchword. This is a reference to Victor Emanuell II, who was

Sardinia’s king before becoming the first king of a united Italy. Furthermore, the speaker

guarantees that the “proud usurper” (l. 13), which alludes to Franz Joseph I, Emperor of

Austria, shall “be humbled in his might” (l. 14). 1859 was the year of the Second Italian

Independence War, which was fought by the Second French Empire under Napoleon III and

the Kingdom of Sardinia against the Austrian Empire. By including this poem into their

periodical, the editors of the EWJ not only wanted to demonstrate that they are aware of

contemporary political issues, but also that they are in favour of Italian nationalism. One

famous friend of the women of the Langham Place Circle, who had strong sympathies for the

struggle for Italian unification, was Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The poetry volume Last

Poems (1862), which was edited by her husband after her death, includes works on Italian

politics. This poetry volume was also very positively reviewed in the EWJ. Two other

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contributors to the periodical who praised the ‘Risorgimento’ were Theodosia Trollope and

Isa Blagden.

The EWJ’s issue of September 1861 includes the poem “The Victor. Written after the

Fire in which James Braidwood Lost His Life”. James Braidwood founded the world’s first

municipal fire service in Edinburgh in 1824 and was appointed the first director of the London

Fire Engine Establishment in 1833. However, he “died in the course of his duties on 22 June

1861 at Tooley Street, London, the scene of an enormous fire which broke out in six-storey

riverside warehouses packed with flammable materials”, where he was “crushed and buried

when the wall of a warehouse collapsed” (ODNB). He was celebrated as a hero and his

funeral procession was “the longest since that for the duke of Wellington” (ODNB). This

poem expresses exactly those sentiments of heroism, bravery and martyrdom. He is described

as one of “God’s true heroes” (EWJ September 1861, 29, l. 6), who had “a truer, higher aim /

Than the warriors laurel-crowned, and written in the rolls of fame” (ll. 3-4). The poem draws

attention to the fact that he saved many lives and that he shall certainly be remembered, for

“his name upon the nation’s heart is evermore engraved” (l. 20). This poem is a tribute to that

brave man and an artistic expression of what people felt and of what was written in the

newspapers. I had a look at some newspaper articles of 1861 on the website The British

Newspaper Archive and found an article called “Funeral of Mr. James Braidwood”, which

was published in the London City Press on 6 July 1861. In this article Braidwood’s actions

and person are praised. The following lines exactly mirror the sentiments expressed in the

poem:

Such a funeral is out of the ordinary course of events, and, we believe, was

justly deserved. Time will pass away, obliterating many a deed of which we

now think much. Men now great and mighty, will be sleeping in their graves.

The clarion of the warrior will be silent, and the clash of the sword be heard no

more. The tongue of the orator will murmur out its last whisper ere it rests for

ever in the dust. But on the roll of the great and the mighty, inscribed in letters

of gold, among those who are good and true, in the hearts and on the lips of

generations to come, will be the name of the brave James Braidwood.

(“Funeral of Mr. James Braidwood” 9)

Since the article and the poem share not only a similar way of expression, but also similar

views on the death of James Braidwood, the poem demonstrates the possibility of an explicit

conection between news items and poetry.

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The third poem “Lines Suggested by the Uncovering of the Memorial of the Prince

Consort” (EWJ August 1863) was written by “the author of Queen Isabel” or Menella Bute

Smedley. It philosophises about death and grief, before moving on to a description of Queen

Victoria’s feelings about her husband’s death. George Gilbert Scott’s design for the Albert

Memorial in London was approved by the Queen in April 1863, four months before this poem

was published. The Victoria Magazine also includes a poem written as a response to a

particular event. “Sydnor” was published in September 1866, and was written by ‘Isca’. The

editors included a footnote, explaining that they had “been requested to insert this poem to

commemorate an event which occurred in June, 1864” (429). What happened was that ten

inhabitants of Palmyra (Missouri) were suspected by General McNeil of having shot a

Unionist acquaintance of his. He ordered them to be publicly shot, whether they were guilty

or not. The editors write that “[o]ne of them was an elderly man, with a devotedly attached

wife and a large family of children”. A young and unmarried man named Sydnor felt

sympathy for “the sad fate of this husband and father” and generously offered his life “as a

substitute for that of his older fellow-countryman” (429); and so he was murdered instead.

The poem praises this brave man – who gave his life not for his own wife or friend, but for

someone else’s husband and friend – and emphasises that his name should never be forgotten.

It is very striking that, unlike the EWJ, the Victoria Magazine does not praise a British hero,

like James Braidwood, but an American. Together with the American writers this contributes

to the Victoria Magazine’s more international image.

These kind of poems, published in periodicals or newspapers, can be seen as “emotional

and aesthetic interpretations of different national events” (Houston 241), similar to

Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade”. His poem responded to an article which was

published in the Times on 13 November 1854. Popular Victorian Poetry reports: “[i]t was

written in the fall of 1854, during the Crimean War, in response to an account of the battle of

Balaclava in The Times. During this battle, the British Light Cavalry Brigade was mistakenly

ordered to charge a valley held by heavily armed Russian troops in order to recover some

guns the Russians had captured. The Brigade of about 700 troops was under heavy fire into

the valley and out of it, and most of soldiers were killed” (“Alfred Lord Tennyson”, n. pag.).

Just like Tennyson, the writers of the poems above were inspired by particular events and by

its reception in the public sphere.

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5.2. Religious, Moral and Spiritual Poetry

The religious, moral and spiritual poetry in the EWJ represents the more conventional side of

the periodical and would have appealed to a broader audience, since religion was still a very

important part of middle-class life in the middle of the nineteenth century. But although the

Victorian age was characterised by a religious revival, many intellectuals were preoccupied

with religious doubt as well. This is called the Victorian crisis of faith, during which God’s

existence became increasingly questioned. As Isobel Armstrong puts it, Victorian society was

“post-teleological” in the sense that the old religious beliefs were no longer seen as absolute

truths, but merely as part of a belief system (3). Scientific discoveries by Charles Darwin,

Charles Lyell and many others caused a lot of religious insecurity and doubt. Poets like Alfred

Lord Tennyson and Matthew Arnold thematised this religious crisis in some of their works.

However, Timothy Larsen draws attention to the fact that the Victorian era may certainly not

be defined as an age of religious doubt:

The nineteenth-century crisis of faith is a motif that has become vastly

overblown. […] When the Victorian landscape is painted, doubt is frequently

exaggerated and faith dwarfed. Too often, the crisis of faith is presented as the

most important thing to be said about religion and the Victorians, or even the

only thing to be said. […] The strength of the narrative of the Victorian crisis

of faith has had the effect of excluding from view much of the religious life

and history of the period. (1-2)

And indeed, the religious and spiritual poetry in the EWJ does not address the crisis of faith.

The poems deal with diverse devotional topics and were written by poets with different

religious backgrounds and beliefs. Especially fascinating is that of the 41 religious, moral and

spiritual poems in the journal, 24 were explicitly published under a female name or female

initials, such as A.A.P. (Adelaide Anne Procter) and L.F. (Louisa Fellows). Only two poems

were explicitly written by male poets. It is of course possible that other male poets hide under

some unidentified initials. Nevertheless it is remarkable that women have written the majority

of the poems in this category. The most frequent contributors of religious poetry are Isa Craig

(6), Adelaide Procter (5) and Louisa Fellows (3). The fact that writing religious poetry was

seen as a “respectable and lady-like thing to do” (Watson 128) may explain this large number

of female contributors. In the eyes of society, faith, God and angels were certainly more

acceptable subjects for women to write on than political matters. Of course the editors of the

EWJ did not believe this; they were in favour of women writing on all kinds of topics,

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including politics and science. But since a great part of women’s poetry was written on

religious topics, it was their choice to include it. The main goal of the EWJ was to give

women a voice, whatever their opinions. Furthermore, as Anne Hogan and Andrew Bradstock

write, during the Victorian period women were believed and expected to have “moral and

spiritual superiority” (1). Many of the poems in this category were included in order to

instruct the readers, since they contain moral messages.

It is also important to note that many of the women of the Langham Place Circle were

religious. From the early 1860s, Bessie Rayner Parkes, the editor of the EWJ, became

“increasingly attracted to the Roman Catholic faith, possibly encouraged by her friendship

with Adelaide Procter” (ODNB), before converting in 1864. Adelaide Procter had converted

to Roman Catholicism in 1851 and is well known for her religious poetry. Pam Hirsch

mentions that Barbara Bodichon was a Unitarian, and that Emily Davies, Emily Faithfull and

Isa Craig were Anglicans (Hirsch, n. pag.). Since religion was a part of their lives, they would

have wanted religion to be a part of their periodical as well. This religious diversity also

appears in the contributors of religious and spiritual poetry. As I have mentioned above, Miss

Procter was a Catholic and Isa Craig was Anglican. Christina Rossetti was a member of the

Oxford Movement, Isa Blagden was a Protestant and Mary Carpenter a Unitarian. But even

though the poets were members of so many different movements, similar themes may be

distinguished. First of all, several poems convey the message that you must have faith in God.

You should never despair but always trust him, for in his hands we are safe. Secondly there is

the motif of the almighty, omnipotent God. He sees, knows and decides everything. He can

crush us with woe, but may also send us happiness, for “in God's hand all Fate is bound”

(“Light and Dark”, EWJ May 1858, 164, l. 48). A third recurring theme is that of the angel. In

eight poems the speaker or a character is visited by an angel, sometimes as a personification

of Joy (“Joy” by Mary Carpenter, EWJ February 1862), Charity (“Charity”, EWJ August

1862) or Death (“The Dying Child” by Mary Carpenter, EWJ September 1862). Furthermore,

in three poems the speaker longs for heaven, a “wonder land” (“A Dream of Death” by Isa

Craig, EWJ August 1859, 388, l. 22), where earthly sorrows will be erased. Very important

for the instruction of readers are the poems with moral messages. “The Changed Cross” (EWJ

May 1858) communicates that all people suffer and that you should not think you have the

heaviest burden of all, but should learn to live with it. “Optimus” (EWJ February 1859) by

Adelaide Anne Procter teaches us about temptation, right and wrong and “In Silence” (EWJ

June 1861) by Louisa Fellows tells us to endure our pain in silence, without complaining. I

have included two additional poems with a moral message in this chapter, although they are

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not explicitly religious. “The Ballad of the Brides of Quair” was written by Isa Craig and

published in the EWJ in February 1859. It tells the story of a rich family that seems to be

cursed: “Ill fare the Brides that come to Quair” (420, l. 32). The father of the House of Quair

never loved his wife, and that is why his daughters and the bride of his son can never be

happy. However, one day the son brings his bride to Quair. His mother brings her to the

fairest chamber in the house and tells her to look out of the window and view the beautiful

scenery. The bride says ‘’Tis fair […] / But what although ‘twere bleak and bare” (ll. 49-50).

The ancient curse on the house of Quair is broken because she loves her husband for himself,

and not for his riches. The moral of the poem is that of many love stories: true love is more

important than wealth. “Little Fairy. A Village Story” (EWJ August 1864) by John Churchill

Brenan shows that a child needs a caring mother through the story of Amy, a girl whose

mother left her and her father when she was a small child. Although her father loved her very

much and she had a happy childhood, she turned out to be a strange child, and later a weird

young woman. She was like a little elf, wandering off into nature on her own, singing weird

songs. One day, when a stranger comes to the village and meets Amy, they fall in love and go

away without saying goodbye. Ten years later she returns to the village on Christmas Eve.

She did not wear many clothes and looked very pale and sad. She has completely lost her

senses. She has lived an unhappy life of “madness / Sleepless nights and wretched days” (415,

ll. 247-8). Eventually she dies, and on winter evenings the people of the village tell her

mournful tale. They say that she was not “fitted for life’s dangerous ways” (l. 260) because

“no wise mother’s training / Blest her in her early days” (ll. 257-8). A fond and tender father

could never replace a mother’s love. The last lines accuse the mother of having brought “a

blight upon her race” (l. 264). This poem warns mothers to take good care of their children.

Otherwise their children will not be ready for the real world and will lead unhappy lives.

The religious, spiritual and moral poems “aimed to inspire, teach, and cultivate

feelings that would lift women to a higher level of moral consciousness” (Ledbetter 4). They

could also instruct readers on social issues, for example on poverty in “Behold, I Stand at the

Door and Knock” by Christina Rossetti (EWJ December 1861). The title of the poem is taken

from the Bible (Revelation 3:20). In the poem three people knock on a lady’s door and ask her

for shelter, which she refuses each time. The Lady sends the old, hungry, homeless widow to

the clergyman, and the old, wayworn and pale man to the workhouse. When the “stunted

child” (245, l. 17) with sunken eyes asks for help, the lady replies “For shame, why don't you

work instead of cry? / I keep no young impostors here; not I” (ll. 22-3) and slams the door in

the child’s face. The speaker of the poem tells the woman to rise up from her comforts, for it

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was actually Christ who had posed as three different people and has come to judge her. This

poem has a similar topic to “An Appeal for the Cripples’ Home”, discussed under ‘Poems

about Modernity’, but is set within an explicit religious framework.

Linda Hughes argues that “[t]he very recurrence of love and faith in periodical poems

across titles and class registers is of course one reason the Wellesley Index omitted poetry. Not

all affective poetry is boring or useless, however” (102). I think this is most certainly true. A

good example to demonstrate this would be “A Lost Chord” by Adelaide Anne Procter, which

was published in the English Woman’s Journal in March 1860. This poem was later set to

music by Arthur Sullivan in 1877 and renamed “The Lost Chord”. The ODNB mentions that

“Sullivan had been trying to set Procter’s words to music for several years, but did not

succeed until faced with the death of his brother Fred”. This ballad was tremendously popular

and “sold a reputed 200,000 copies” (ODNB). This demonstrates that religious poetry could

transcend sentimentality and was not limited to its original setting of the periodical.

Of the 25 poems in the 4 volumes of the Victoria Magazine on the other hand, only

one has a spiritual theme. “In Futuro” (VM March 1878) was also written by a female poet:

Josephine Pollard, an American hymn writer. It philosophises about life, time and humankind.

Why is it that this periodical contains so very little religious poetry in comparison to its

predecessor? This seems to be in contradiction to a statement Emily Davies made in a letter to

Barbara Bodichon in March 1863: “[t]he Victoria Magazine will treat of Literature, Art &

Science. Theology & Politics will not be excluded” (Murphy and Raftery 40). And indeed, the

magazine does treat theology, for it is discussed in essays and articles, for example in the

essays “Utilitarianism and Christianity” (VM June 1863, 142-156), written by Reverend J.

Llewelyn Davies and “One-Sided Morality” (VM May 1866, 42-55). It is also possible that

the poems in the digitised volumes to which I had access are not representative of the poetry

in the Victoria Magazine.

I have tried to show the diversity of religious poetry in the EWJ and that it can be

more than a “sentimental filler worth no one’s time” (Hughes, “Wellesley Index” 91). These

poems are an important part of the periodical, reflecting the importance of religion in the lives

of many of its middle-class contributors and readers.

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5.3. Poetry about Other Writers or Works

In the two periodicals, six poems are about or allude to other writers or works. By referring to

their predecessors, the poets inscribe themselves into a literary tradition. “Two Graves” was

written by Bessie Rayner Parkes and published in the EWJ in April 1858. The epigraph

provides us with vital information for the understanding of the poem: “Percy Bysshe Shelley,

drowned July 8, 1822. / Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, died Feb. 1, 1851. / In death they are

not divided” (123, ll. 1-3). The first two sentences remind us of a statement in a newspaper or

a title of an obituary. The last sentence is a biblical reference to the second book of Samuel

1:23. The poem itself describes how husband and wife “sleep, a thousand miles apart” (l. 5).

“He sleeps beneath the Roman rose” (l. 8), since his ashes were interred in the protestant

cemetery in Rome. Mary on the other hand lies “amidst the heather and the pine” (l. 11) in

England. The speaker of the poem hopes that although they lie so far apart, they are together

in heaven, where“[t]heir long-dissever’d lives entwine” (l. 18) after a separation of thirty

years. The poem was written in March of the same year, in Boscombe. This was the place

where Mary Shelley would have lived with her son Sir Percy and his wife. However, she died

in London before moving there. She was eventually buried in St. Peter’s Church in

Bournemouth, near Boscombe. Bessie Parkes visited Lord Percy and his wife in 1857, where

she was inspired to write this poem. This poem demonstrates how not only the works, but also

the lives of other writers can be an inspiration to poets. The Shelleys themselves have become

the subject of another writer’s work. In the poem their love is immortalised, just like that of

Romeo and Juliet, and Orpheus and Eurydice.

The following poem is called “Lines on a Cameo Head of Dante” (written by J.B.S.,

published in the EWJ in January 1859) and includes references both to the poet and to one of

his works. The title suggests that the poet was inspired to write these lines by a cameo, which

is “a piece of jewellery, typically oval in shape, consisting of a portrait in profile carved in

relief on a background of a different colour” (ODE). The poem starts with an Italian epigraph,

coming from Dante’s Divine Comedy. The following four lines “Yes, look on him! The man

who into Hell / Descended, and returned again to dwell / Among his fellow-men. The tale is

old, / Yet ever new and daily to be told” (33, ll. 2-5) were also inspired by this work, in which

the poet Virgil guides Dante through hell. Then the poem describes how all the ladies of

Florence are silent and awe-struck when Dante passes by. They are “hushed in a holy fear”,

for “one who can tell of other worlds is near” (ll. 12-3). They consider the poet to have special

– even magical – qualities. What is more, he is seen as a Christ-like figure who has

resurrected, for neither “Earth nor Hell can hold the sons of Heaven!” (l. 23). This poem can

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be read as a glorification of a literary forefather, in which his status is similar to that of the

Romantic poetic genius. The poet J.B.S. recognises Dante’s importance for literary history.

The Italian poet is also known as ‘the supreme poet’.

Another poem that was inspired by a work of another writer is Bessie Rayner

Parkes’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Oberon Loquitur” (EWJ December 1859). It refers

to the play by William Shakespeare and the character Oberon, the king of the fairies. In the

poem Oberon holds a monologue, saying that he has looked for his wife everywhere but

cannot find her. He asks the leaves, the wind, the water and the flowers where she is, but

“they cannot tell, or they will not discover” (246, l. 6). He misses his “delicate darling” (l. 34)

terribly and cannot live without her. Finally his mother is moved by his pleading and shows

him in a dream that she is asleep in the heart of the hills. The poem was based on

Shakespeare’s play and uses its characters, but places them in a new story and a new balance

of power. In the play Oberon takes revenge on Titania and tricks her, but here he is no longer

the person in control. The poem again shows that a writer’s work may serve as an inspiration

to others. Furthermore, Bessie Rayner Parkes inscribes herself in a predominantly male

literary tradition. As a female poet she claims the authority to use material from a great male

writer. Her poem also transcends the boundaries of literary genres: material from a play is

inserted in “Oberon Loquitur”. The fourth poem, “In Memory”, was published in the Victoria

Magazine in April 1878 and written as a tribute to the poet William Cowper, who lived from

1731 until 1800. The poem itself does not specify who it is remembering, but the introduction

states that the poet wrote it after he/she stayed at “the house occupied by the Poet Cowper for

several years, at Weston-under-Wood” (VM April 1878, 518). The speaker praises Cowper,

calling him a “sainted bard” (l. 11) and “a name / High in the Muses’ roll of fame” (l. 20). But

the poem does not only discuss his status as a poet and his purpose – which is to “instruct […]

in every page, / To win the ear of youth and age” (ll. 5-6) – but also his life. The line “In riper

age ‘twas thine to know / The heaviest form of human woe” (ll. 13-4) refers to the fact that he

suffered from severe depression and tried to commit suicide several times. The publication of

this poem in the Victoria Magazine shows that Cowper continued to be an inspiration and that

he had not been forgotten 78 years after his death, despite being “overshadowed in literary

history by his successors Wordsworth and Coleridge” (ODNB). The poem is an

acknowledgement of his poetic ability and his status as literary forefather.

The last two poems are explicitly linked to the periodicals’ literary agendas. They were

written by female poets about other female poets. Christina Rossetti’s poem “LE.L.” was

published in the Victoria Magazine’s first issue of May 1863. It is an elegy on Letitia

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Elizabeth Landon, who lived from 1802 until 1838 and was one of the most popular female

poets of her time. As a female poet and independent woman she was confronted with much

prejudice. She was “slandered in the gutter press” (ODNB), which claimed that she was a

woman of loose morals, allegedly having multiple affairs. Furthermore, she was not deemed

respectable because she lived on her own and made a living as a professional writer. Just two

months after her marriage to George Maclean she was found dead in her room, “apparently

slumped against the door with an empty bottle of prussic acid in her hand” (ODNB). Landon

had a profound influence on later female poets and she became the subject of two famous

elegies: Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “L.E.L.’s Last Question” (1844) and “L.E.L.” by

Christina Rossetti. Rossetti’s poem corresponds to the Victoria Magazine’s literary agenda in

two different ways. First of all, it is in dialogue with other female poets: the poem is a tribute

to Letitia Elizabeth Landon and a response to Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem. The

epigraph of Rossetti’s poem is a line from Browning’s elegy: "whose heart was breaking for a

little love." Secondly, “L.E.L.” may be read as an account of the inner life of the female poet.

She may come out in public, act happy and be admired, but when she is alone she realises she

is lonely. She may be an independent woman, but her “heart is breaking for a little love” (VM

May 1863, 40, l. 4). Furthermore, the poem is linked to the periodical’s socio-political agenda

in the sense that it draws attention to the problematic position of the single, working middle-

class woman in the nineteenth century. During the Victorian era it was very difficult for a

middle-class woman to work and still maintain a respectable position within society.

However, although Christina Rossetti earned money from her writing, she was not cast out of

society for it. Her appearance in Victoria Magazine shows that it gave women a chance to

publish their works and hold a proper place within the public sphere.

“In Memoriam Adelaide Anne Procter” is a poem by Matilda M. Hays, published in the

EWJ in April 1864. It was written right after Procter’s death. Hays and Procter were both

members of the Langham Place Group, and were close friends – some sources even claim that

they were lovers. The poem describes how she died (“she passed from earth in that quiet

sleep” [109, l. 3]) and praises her, calling her a “stainless spirit” (l. 13) who led “a pure life”

(l. 17). Matilda Hays also refers to Procter as a poet in the line “a crown of glory early won”

(l. 10). These two poets had a history of engaging with each other in their literary works.

Procter wrote a love poem which was called “To M.M.H.”, before being renamed “A

Retrospect” when it was included in Legends and Lyrics (1858). This poetry volume was even

dedicated to Matilda Hays. Furthermore, Hays “opened her novel Adrienne Hope (1866) with

one of Procter's poems” (ODNB). These two poems by Rossetti and Hays establish a female

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tradition of poetry and acknowledge literary foremothers. By “entering into poetic

conversation” with other female poets, they “place themselves outside of the sphere of male

poetry by forging a unique discourse of their own form within the patriarchal form”

(Wiseman, n. pag.). This of course corresponds greatly to the literary agenda of the two

feminist periodicals, who wanted to give women a forum in which they could express

themselves.

5.4. Poetry about Nature, Love and Death

The poems that deal with nature, love and death play an important role in both periodicals. 30

percent of the poems in the EWJ deal with these topics (12% death, 9% nature, 9% love). In

the Victoria Magazine on the other hand they make up the bulk with 80 percent (44% love,

24% nature, 12% death). I discuss these topics together because they are often linked. In

contrast to the poetry about contemporary issues, they are part of the more conventional side

of the periodicals. People had been writing poems about these topics for centuries. First of all,

the poems about love deal with both positive and negative themes, with happiness and

sadness, with marriage and heartbreak. Different kinds of love are being addressed, for

example the love for a city (“Le Pêcheur de Sorrente” by Madame Emile de Girardin, EWJ

August 1861), love and thankfulness towards women (“Man’s Debt to Woman” by Richard

Friend, EWJ August 1863) and the love between a young woman and an older man (“The

Exception Proves the Rule” by Agnes Stonehewer, VM August 1866). But lost love,

depression and death are also thematised. “Never to Know” (EWJ January 1862), written by

Isa Craig, tells a tragic love story. Two people loved each other but did not know it of each

other. Now the woman is dead and they will never know that they yearned for each other. If

they had revealed their love to one another, “Both had rejoiced in the crimson glow / And one

had not lain ‘neath the stars and snow” (315, ll. 31-2). Furthermore, in many love poems we

get extensive descriptions of nature.

Secondly, death was an important topic in the nineteenth century. One of the most

famous poems of this era is of course In Memoriam A.H.H. by Lord Alfred Lord Tennyson

(1849), which was one of Queen Victoria’s personal favourites. Many poets were preoccupied

with death and philosophised about it in their work. The two periodicals include poems with a

variety of themes: parents losing their children (‘The Lighthouse-keeper’s Child” by Thomas

Hood [VM October 1863] and “The Mother’s Lament” [EWJ April 1860]), depression (“Pia

de Tolomei” [EWJ March 1861]) and welcoming death (“Longings” by John George Fleet

[EWJ April 1862]). A recurring question that preoccupied poets is what happened to those

45

people who are left behind, after a loved one has died. In “Under the Snow” (EWJ February

1861), written by Louisa Fellows, the speaker reassures the crying people that God will watch

over their beloved and that even though they are sad now, they will be happy again. “By A

Death-Bed” (EWJ September 1860) declares that you should not wish for the dead to come

back, for “Thou art weary – she at rest / Free from earthly strife or pain / Thou hast sorrows –

she has joy” (33, ll. 21-3).

The third significant topic is nature. Interestingly, of the ten poems about nature in the

EWJ, five were written by male poets, being Berquin, Arnault and Walter Thornbury.

Furthermore, four poems were written by French authors: Berquin, Arnault and Amable

Tastu. The poems under this topic revolve around the description of different phenomena of

nature: the sea (“The Sea, In Storm” [EWJ November 1858]), a stream making its journey to

the sea (“Invitation” [EWJ December 1858]), birds (“Le Nid de Fauvette” [EWJ October

1861]), trees (“L’Arbre Exotique” [EWJ December 1861]), the wind (“La Feuille” [EWJ

December 1861]) and flowers (“A June Morning” [EWJ June 1862]). The poem “Taedium

Vitae” (EWJ June 1862) by Walter Thornbury expresses a beautiful message, being that

nature is eternal: “Our Arts may die—but Nature works / On old and very settled rules” (241,

ll. 21-2). Of the six poems about nature in the Victoria Magazine, four were explicitly written

by male poets. George MacDonald contributed three poems, which are part of a series: “Song

of the Summer Days” (VM June 1863), “Song of the Summer Nights” (VM August 1863) and

“Songs of the Autumn Days” (VM September 1863). Whereas the first two describe nature on

sunlit days and peaceful nights, the last poem also philosophises about the death of a farmer,

and asks if earth should bloom even when someone has died. Two rather unconventional

poems are “Sea-Weeds” (VM June 1866), which is an ode on the “flowers of Neptune” (142,

l. 5) and “The Euplectella Speciosa, or The Flower-Basket of Venus” (VM April 1878), in

which the speaker is given this extraordinary ‘flower’ by the goddess Venus. The Venus’

flower basket was actually very popular during the Victorian period, for it became some kind

of collector’s item. Although poetry about nature is primarily associated with the Romantic

period, it was an important source of inspiration for Victorian poets as well. In this chapter I

have tried to demonstrate the interconnectedness of the three topics. When poets talk about

love, they often use imagery coming from nature. Poems that deal with death are often about

the death of a loved one and even in the poems about nature, we are able to find links with

love or death. And although many of these poems would have been classified as sentimental

by critics of the twentieth century, they nevertheless give us an insight into what Victorian

poets wrote about and tell us a lot about the Victorians’ vision on love, nature and death.

46

Furthermore, together with the religious poetry they are part of the more conventional side of

the two magazines. As a result they help to mediate the periodicals’ less conventional

ideological profiles.

5.5. Poetry with Mythological and Historical References

Kathryn Ledbetter has argued that the poetry in women’s periodicals did not often refer to

other texts, for “if the poem is caught in a web of allusion to texts outside popular recognition,

women may be prohibited by their lack of knowledge” (11). This would have been the case

for domestic magazines, but not for the feminist periodical the English Woman’s Journal. By

including poems with mythological and historical references, the editors hoped to stimulate

women intellectually. Their aim was to teach women something, just like with the French

poetry. Furthermore, Ledbetter writes that “allusions beyond Homer or the last century’s

poets may be out of range for some groups” (12). Since the EWJ aimed at an upper-middle

class readership who had received a solid education, allusions would actually have been

encouraged. The following poems were published in the EWJ and contain many mythological

and historical allusions. “Gibson’s Studio” (EWJ May 1859) by Bessie Rayner Parkes

describes the studio of John Gibson, a British neo-classical sculptor who lived and worked in

Rome for most of his life. Several mythological figures and creatures are being introduced:

Venus, Psyche, the Muses and “[c]reatures born of wood and stream” (171, l. 7), which could

refer to nymphs. In the line “The Hours with noiseless feet” (l. 10), ‘the Hours’ alludes to

Gibson’s well known basso relieve of The Hours Leading the Horses of the Sun. This

demonstrates that works of art other than literary texts could also serve as poetic material.

“Minerva Medica” (EWJ July 1859), another poem by Parkes, has been discussed in the

chapter entitled ‘Poetry about the Woman Question’. I have explained how the poem evokes

the mythological figure of Minerva Medica, the Roman goddess of medicine and doctors.

“The Legend of the Almond Tree” (EWJ May 1861) is a rather difficult poem and includes

many allusions to mythology. It mentions not only the names of people and Gods, like

Demophöon, Haemus, Phyllis and Jove, but also of a mountain range (Mount Rhodope),

rivers (Hebrus and Styx), islands (the Aegaen Islands), and sea nymphs (Nereids). “Taedium

Vitae” (EWJ June 1862) by Walter Thornbury introduces historical allusions to Ahab, who

was a king of Israel, the Tatars, an ethnic group, and Tamerlane, a Mongolian conqueror of

the 14th century. “Tolle Lege” (EWJ March 1863) tells the story of Augustine of Hippo, who

lived from 354 until 430 and was a Christian theologian and bishop, and in “Lysias” (EWJ

June 1864), S.E. Braun talks about the Ancient Greek logographer Lysias. These poems

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would have encouraged readers to read more about Greek mythology or historical figures, in

order to fully understand and appreciate the poems. Similar to the French poetry in the EWJ,

these poems would present women with instruction that went far beyond showy

accomplishments.

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6. Reviews of Poetry

This chapter deals with reviews of poetry in the two magazines and explains how this

particular type of text is also linked to the socio-political and literary agendas of the EWJ and

Victoria Magazine. It examines the distribution of poetry reviews, the names and sex of

reviewed poets, the character of reviews (positive or negative) and the differences between

the two periodicals.

6.1. Reviews of Poetry in the English Woman’s Journal

Literary and non-literary texts are reviewed in the section called ‘Notices of Books’, which is

included in each issue. Although reviews of novels, children’s books, essays, biographies and

articles in other magazines make up the greatest part of this section, the EWJ has included 21

poetry reviews as well. Graph 13 shows that although poetry reviews were not always

included, they still remained a feature until the very end of the six-year long run. Furthermore,

it is remarkable that the EWJ not only published more poems by women, but also reviewed

more female than male poets (see graph 14). There are 12 reviews of women and 7 of men.

This shows that the EWJ’s socio-political agenda of encouraging female employment is

extended to its literary agenda, since the greater amount of reviews of women draw attention

to their writing. And what supports the EWJ’s encouragement of women’s writing even more

is the fact that of the 12 reviews of poetry by female poets, 10 are positive and only 2 are

negative. The reviews of male poets, on the other hand, are divided into 4 positive and 3

negative reviews (see graph 15). What is even more striking is that the positive reviews of

male poets usually include a negative remark, whereas the positive reviews of women are

generally very positive. For example, the review of Ionica by William Johnson Cory (EWJ

November 1860) is positive, but this poetry volume is also criticised for not really containing

unique poetry: “[i]t is not […] free from the accusation of being essentially in and of the

modern school of writing, which now numbers so many —masters and pupils— all bearing

more or less resemblance to each other, and east, more or less perfectly, in the same mould.”

(210). Positive reviews of female poetry on the other hand seldom include negative remarks

and usually praise the poet a great deal. As an illustration I quote a review of Legends and

Lyrics by Adelaide Anne Procter: “this poet child of a poet father has yet a distinct utterance

of her own, which renders this volume of poems a valuable contribution to the literature of the

day, and will ensure for it a place in the hearts of readers yet unborn” (EWJ July 1858, 341).

Although this was her first poetry volume, the reviewers already inscribe her into the literary

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canon. By including so many positive reviews of female poets, the EWJ wanted to

demonstrate that women are just as capable of writing good poetry as men are. Furthermore,

the poetry volumes by women are often recommended to readers, which would help those

writers financially and would support women’s writing. By including some lines or even

whole poems, the reviewers want to give the readers an idea of that person’s work and hope

that they will buy the poetry volume. Nathalie Houston writes that “[s]tudies of Victorian

literary criticism have demonstrated the role of the periodical press in shaping readers'

opinions and in making new poems known to large numbers of readers (233). This was

especially helpful for poets who were at the beginning of their career or who were not well-

known yet, such as Mary Sewell, Ruth Wills and Christina Rossetti. Most importantly,

together with the poems in the EWJ, the reviews of female poets helped “documenting a

tradition of women’s literature” and “stressed the potential of English literary women”

(Robinson 163).

It is necessary to note that not all poetry volumes by women received positive reviews.

Pebbles and Shells by Elizabeth Wilmhurst French is classified into the category of mediocre

poetry, which “completely [lacks] the true spirit” and is “so utterly devoid of point or

originality” (EWJ October 1858, 136). However, the reviewer adds that although it is

mediocre poetry, at least it is not “repulsive and objectionable”. This last description would be

fit to describe Life Triumphant, written by Elizabeth Ann Campbell. The reviewer asks

“whether it deserves the name of poetry” and writes that “it is hardly likely that any one

capable of criticism should dream for a moment of so abusing the term”, for it is merely a

“rhymed version of the principal facts of the Bible and of the doctrines deduced therefrom by

evangelical commentators” (EWJ December 1863, 283). It is apparent that the EWJ did not

just want to support women’s writing, but emphasised good women’s writing. The sex of the

poets was important to the editors, but what was of paramount importance was the quality of

the poetry.

In order to better understand the EWJ’s literary agenda and method of reviewing, I am

going to discuss four poetry reviews in more detail. The very first issue of the EWJ (March

1858) includes a review of The Angel in the House (1854) by Coventry Patmore. He was an

English poet and essayist and lived from 1823 until 1896. The inspiration for this narrative

poem was his own courtship of and marriage to Emily, his ‘angel’ wife. The woman in the

poem, Honoria, symbolises the perfect Victorian woman: devoted to her children and

husband, submissive, domestic, passive and pure. His poem was immensely popular in the

second half of the nineteenth century, but was heavily criticised in the twentieth century,

50

especially by feminists. Joan Hoffman writes: “[f]rom a feminist perspective, the social order

being supported here by the institution of marriage and the angel-wife's place within it is most

assuredly a conservative hierarchical one grounded in sexual repression within the patriarchy”

(265). The woman does not have a voice of her own and is objectified within the ideology of

the separate spheres. Probably the most famous critic of The Angel in the House was Virginia

Woolf. In her speech “Professions for Women”, which she delivered on 21 January 1931, she

stated that “[k]illing the Angel in the House was part of the occupation of a woman writer”

(Woolf n. pag.). It may therefore come as a surprise that the feminist EWJ published a

positive review of this poem. The writers of the review state that it is “so elaborately minute

in its analysis of feeling and of beauty”, that they “are at a loss to express how very delicate,

truthful, and beautiful it appears to [them]” (EWJ March 1858, 61). However, the reviewers

do acknowledge that it is very conventional and write that there is some truth in what “a

reviewer in one of the Quarterlies says”, which is that Patmore’s “estimation of women is too

non-intellectual for his verse to find much favour in women’s eyes” (62). They admit that “he

gives [Honoria] but little reality as a human being” (62). But overall it is a favourable review,

which may seem strange coming from a feminist periodical. However, first of all, the

reviewers make a distinction between the poetic quality of the poem and its contents. They

appreciate The Angel in the House because in their opinion, Patmore has written some very

beautiful poetry, but they do not necessarily agree with the contents. Secondly, the Langham

Place Circle has to be situated within nineteenth – and not twentieth – century feminism.

Many early feminists did not see marriage as a bad thing. Levine argues: “[t]he criticism of

marriage which feminists made arose, for the most part, not out of disenchantment with the

institution of marriage or intimate relations between men and women so much as through a

dissatisfaction with the existing marital status quo” (Victorian Feminism, 141). They wanted

to improve the fate of unhappy married women and change the laws concerned with property,

divorce and the custody of children, but they were certainly not against marriage. Their aim

was to present all those ‘superfluous’ women, for whom marriage was not an option, with

another option: employment. However, they did not want to do away with marriage and

domesticity, as long as the partners were content. And of course there would have been some

more conservative members amongst the contributors to the EWJ as well.

The second review praises Homely Ballads for the Working Man's Fireside (1859) by

Mary Sewell, which contains 18 ballads that deal with working-class life. The poetry lines

that have been included focus on the merits of working-class people. The speaker asserts that

“Yet we are great as well as they / I know it, and will speak / Although we're only working

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folks / And women poor and weak” (EWJ March 1860, 56, ll. 1-4), and states that they have a

“noble heart”, a “spirit true and just” (ll. 7-8), a “courage stout” (l. 19) and “the patience that a

martyr may require” (ll. 25-26). The reviewer also quotes from the poetry volume’s preface,

which claims that among the working classes there exists “an instinctive love and appreciation

of simple, descriptive poetry” (58), and that poetry would benefit them both morally and

intellectually. By stating that these ballads “should be read aloud at some poor ‘Mothers'

Sewing Meeting’, or at a Christmas gathering of the poor, by some kindly-hearted reader

mentally en rapport with the authoress”, the EWJ appeals to their middle-class audience to

engage in social work. The inclusion of this review shows that although the periodical was

primarily concerned with middle-class education and employment, it was not indifferent

towards the plight of working-class women.

The issue of May 1862 reviews Goblin Market and Other Poems, Christina Rossetti’s

first poetry volume. It is amusing to read this review, which states that “[t]hese poems will

never be popular: – they are too good!” (EWJ May 1862, 206) since Christina Rossetti

eventually became one of the most famous female poets of the Victorian era, and “Goblin

Market” became her best-known poem. The reviewers anticipate possible remarks of readers

and write: “[b]ut let us hear what they have to say against it—" It is so odd." True; we admit

it—" so peculiar." Allowed -" so very quaint and old-fashioned." We plead guilty; and let us

add—these are some of its great charms !” (206). In their opinion, “Goblin Market” “is the

most quaint in the book”, therefore they advise the readers to read some of the shorter poems

first. The reviewers of the EWJ were not the only ones to call this poem ‘quaint’. In April

1862, one month before the article in the EWJ, a reviewer in the Spectator called it a “quaint

little poem” (“Goblin Market” 22). By including two of her poems the reviewers want to give

readers an idea of her work, in the hope that they will buy the volume. As a result they will

support female authorship and a female poet at the beginning of her career.

The fourth review was published in December 1863 and examines Isabella Law’s

Winter Weavings (1863). Although there is not much variation in her poems and although

they “lack [a] vigorous touch”, the reviewers think they are genuine, pure and true and show a

“general likeness to the famous Legends and Lyrics” (EWJ December 1863, 281). Since this

poetry volume is dedicated to Adelaide Anne Procter, and includes a poem called “To

A.A.P.”, in which she expresses her love and respect for this “angel” (l. 20) poet, Isabella

Law enters into “poetic conversation” (Wiseman, n. pag.) with a literary foremother.

Similarly to Matilda M. Hays, she inscribes herself into a female literary tradition (see chapter

‘Poetry about Other Writers and Works’).

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6.2. Reviews of Poetry in Victoria Magazine

The Victoria Magazine changed the name of the review section multiple times: it is called

‘Literature of the Month’ in volume 1, ‘Literature’ in volume 7, ‘Reviews of Books’ in

volume 11 and ‘Our Library Table’ in volume 30. Phegley explains why this was an

important part of the magazine:

Due to the prohibitive cost of serializing ‘first-rate’ novelists, Victoria was

unable to obtain authors with the same status as those who contributed to the

Cornhill. As a result of Victoria’s inability to rely solely on fiction for its

reputation, the magazine emphasized its literary criticism as a way to compete

with its wealthier and more popular rival, whose serial novels it regularly

reviewed. Victoria’s criticism thus emerged as the crowning glory of the

magazine. (154)

Every issue of the Victoria Magazine indeed includes literary criticism (as can be derived

from graph 16), but not always poetry reviews. In the 4 volumes I have looked at, only 7

poetry reviews were included. The fact that 3 of them review male poets, and 4 review female

poets (see graph 17), again shows that the Victoria Magazine aimed at a broader audience and

put less emphasis on its feminist agenda. This is in contrast with the EWJ, which specifically

targeted women and included more reviews of female poets. In comparison to the EWJ, the

reviews are quite short; sometimes just a few sentences. Moreover, the reviews in the Victoria

Magazine do not always include lines or even whole poems like in Parkes’s periodical. The

reason for this is that the Victoria Magazine usually reviews more texts in every issue and

therefore cannot discuss everything equally extensively. The poets who are being discussed

had either already published some work, like Jean Ingelow, Louise Chandler Moulton and

Edgar Alfred Bowring, or were already quite famous, like Robert Lytton (Owen Meredith),

George Eliot and Matthew Arnold. Furthermore, it is striking that the 7 poetry reviews in

volumes 1, 7, 11 and 30 are all positive (see graph 18). Although the reviewers of George

Eliot’s dramatic poem “The Spanish Gypsy” admit that they “think less of the poem and more

of the novels” and that “throughout the whole poem [they were] painfully struck with the

poverty of the occasional songs and odes introduced”, they still believe that it is a step in the

right direction and that she is a “woman of genius” (VM September 1868, 473). They

acknowledge that it is very difficult for an author who has established a reputation as a

novelist to unexpectedly publish a poem, because professional critics will be “unusually

severe and amateurs inordinately exacting and suspicious” (472).

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The review of Chronicles and Characters by Robert Lytton, also known under his

pseudonym Owen Meredith, demonstrates that the reviews in the Victoria Magazine are

certainly not limited to the discussion of poetry volumes. First of all, the reviewer expresses

his/her views on the poetry of the age, stating that “[t]here is little rashness in asserting we

live in an age which has had no rival in past times for the production of a sickly mass of

mediocre poetry” (VM May 1868, 84). A similar opinion can be found in the EWJ, for three

poetry reviews in this periodical start with an exposition on mediocre poems, complaining

that they “completely lack the true spirit” and are “so utterly devoid of point or originality”

(EWJ October 1858, 136). This “sickly mass of mediocre poetry” however, does not include

Lytton’s work, for he is described as a genius who possesses “most marked originality and

power, a fine and rare taste, and a richly cultivated mind” (VM May 1868, 85). Furthermore,

the reviewer comments upon the contemporary issue of the Poet Laureateship and asks to

whom the “golden apple” (85) will be thrown after Tennyson’s death. Linda Peterson writes

that “[e]ven before Tennyson died in October 1892, speculation had begun about the next poet

laureate and the future of the office”, for “[a]s early as May 1890 the Fortnightly Review

published an anonymous assessment, ‘Tennyson: And After?’” (Peterson, n. pag.). The

review in the Victoria Magazine, which was published in 1868, shows that people were

already speculating much earlier about Tennyson’s successor. The reviewer points out that up

until then, the names of Algernon Swinburne and Robert Buchanan had been mentioned, but

that with Mr. Lytton “another formidable rival has come to dispute the place of first

favourite” (85).

It could also be interesting to compare a review of the same poetry volume in the EWJ

and the Victoria Magazine. Both periodicals have included a review of Poems (1863) by Jean

Ingelow and both are very positive. The EWJ writes that her poetry volume possesses “true

poetic genius” (EWJ September 1863, 54) and that Ingelow shows “great command over the

resources of language” (56). By using the word ‘genius’, which is much more often used to

describe male authors, the reviewers want to emphasise that poetry written by women is in no

way inferior to that of male poets. The Victoria Magazine notes that “her insight is the true

insight of single seeing” and that her poems show “both power and delicacy” (VM September

1863, 480) The two magazines praise and advertise the work of this female poet. Phegley

points out:

[w]hile it was typical, then, for gender to impact Victorian literary critcism,

Victoria transformed the way gender functioned in literary reviews. Whereas

works by women tended to be labeled and criticized for their sentimentality or

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sensationalism, Victoria made an effort to praise works by women for their

artistry and their social value. (177)

The same could of course be said from the English Woman’s Journal. Not only the poetry

reviews, but also the poems in the two periodicals stress the fact that women are just as

capable of writing good poetry as men are. And as I have shown in the chapter entitled

‘Topics of Poetry’, the poetry of women can be a gold mine of information about the social,

political, religious, scientific and literary climates of the Victorian period.

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7. Poetry Articles

Similarly to the reviews, the poetry articles in the English Woman’s Journal are linked to its

socio-political and literary agendas. This chapter examines which writers are being discussed

and why they would have been included in the periodical. Graph 19 shows that the EWJ

includes 11 poetry articles, of which 10 articles report on female writers and 1 deals with a

poetry volume. And even though some female writers did not write poetry themselves, they

were married to poets. The articles inform us not only about the work and lives of British

female writers, but also of foreign ones. By including articles on German, French and Italian

writers, the EWJ promotes female authorship beyond Britain and establishes a transnational

female literary tradition.

The following three articles are explicitly linked to the feminist views of the

periodical. The first one was written in memory of Johanna Kinkel (1810-1858). She was a

German writer, musician, compositor, teacher and the wife of the poet Göttfried Kinkel. In

this memoir we get an account of her life and we read about her exile after the Revolution of

1848. Furthermore, she was one of the pioneers of the women’s movement in the nineteenth

century. Before she met her husband, she had already been married to the music publisher

Johann Paul Mathieux. The article in the EWJ mentions that

at twenty years of age she married a man who was in every respect inferior to

her. ‘This match,’ she justly remarks in her memoir, ‘represents the fate of

thousands of women, and is the necessary result of our social relations.

Hundreds of our sex sink and perish in a similar lot, while through a whole

generation hardly one dares to break from this miserable existence.’ (EWJ

January 1859, 298-9)

But she did dare to break from her husband, and they were divorced after only five months of

marriage (ODNB). By publishing an article about Johanna Kinkel, the EWJ shows that it is

possible for a woman to work and write and still be admired, for “in her own country her

name is still held in loving and honored remembrance” (297). Furthermore, by mentioning

Kinkel’s first marriage and divorce, the article proves that divorce is a possibility, although

only in some cases and in a different country. But it would have supported the periodical’s

vision, and would have shown that a woman could even find love after a divorce: “[t]en years

had elapsed since her first unhappy marriage, when she became united to the man whose mind

was congenial to her own, and this match proved indeed a happy one” (299). Moreover, Freia

Hoffmann writes that Johanna Kinkel criticised the superficial, non-intellectual musical

56

education of many girls (Hoffmann, n. pag.). This idea greatly corresponds to the periodical’s

views on the education of girls, being that showy accomplishments are inferior to real

instruction, as has been demonstrated in the chapter on ‘Contributors of Poetry’.

The EWJ has also included two articles on Elizabeth von Recke. She was a Baltic

German writer and poet and lived from 1754 until 1833. The first article talks about her

childhood and education, her first encounters with literature, and her unhappy marriage and

oppressive husband. Again the inadequate education of girls is being addressed. She received

“superficial language-lessons” and together with “some instruction from a private tutor in

religion, history, and geography, this was thought to be all that was necessary” (EWJ May

1860, 162). The article also discusses the issue of marriage. When she was “of a marriageable

age”, there were many suitors who asked for her hand. Ultimately her parents advised her to

marry Baron von der Recke, because he was “a man of ancient and noble family and

possessed of considerable fortune” (165-6). However, she did not feel inclined towards him at

all and the marriage turned out to be a disaster. This was a reality for many upper- and upper-

middle class women. Furthermore, her husband absolutely disliked “her propensity for

reading” and complained about it to her grandmother, who also “hated nothing so much in

women as their ‘busying themselves with books’” (167). In the eighteenth century, during the

time when Elizabeth von Recke lived, it was considered to be improper and even dangerous

for women to read too much. Reading could lead to thinking and this was not encouraged.

After five years of having endured her husband’s oppression, she wrote him a gentle letter to

tell him that “by his injurious conduct towards his wife, he was sinning yet more against

himself than against her” (168). He was furious and sent her and their daughter away from his

domain, and they went to live with one of her relatives. The EWJ describes her situation as

“worse than widowed” (168). The second article (EWJ June 1860) reports on the formal

separation from her husband, the publication of her hymns, her friendship with important

intellectuals and her political work. After living on her own for a while – her daughter had

died only a few months after being sent away from home – her husband demanded a formal

separation. This demonstrates how only men could ask for a divorce, something feminists

wanted to change. However, the divorce actually meant that she could devote herself entirely

to her literary career. She became very well esteemed and the fact that she was friends with

some of the most famous thinkers and writers of her time – including Goethe, Wieland and

Otto Nicolai – shows that women, and their intellect, were certainly not inferior to men. The

articles on Elizabeth von Recke and Johanna Kinkel were published in the EWJ not only to

promote female authorship beyond Britain and to establish a female literary tradition, but also

57

because they support the opinions expressed in the articles and essays about marriage,

education, divorce and the employment of women.

The following three foreign writers are not explicitly linked to the women’s

movement. But since the articles are about female writers, who wrote in a time when this was

not self-evident, they support the views the magazine has about female employment and

authorship. The issue of August 1859 includes an article on Christina of Pisa (1364 – c.1430),

who was an Italian French medieval author and “one of the most graceful and accomplished

writers of French poetry” (EWJ August 1859, 368). She was very well-known in her time and

admired in France and at the English court of Richard II. Feminist scholars have recently

called Christina of Pisa a feminist writer. However, as Andrew Vincent points out, “[t]here is

an unresolved debate here as to whether de Pizan was concerned with something that could

genuinely be called feminism” (169). Either way, there is no question that by including an

article on a medieval female poet, the EWJ presents the reader with an inspirational

foremother. Another article, published in September 1860, reports on Madame Delphine de

Girardin (1804-1855), the French author and poet. The fact that she was the daughter of the

famous author Sophie Gay and that she was introduced by her into the literary world is

highlighted multiple times. This article is all about Delphine, and only at the very end does it

mention her husband Émile de Girardin, the popular French journalist, publicist and

politician. It demonstrates how the lives and works of women do not need to stand back for

that of their husbands, fathers and brothers. And finally, the EWJ published an article on

Madame Elisa de Lamartine (1790-1863) written by Bessie Parkes on the occasion of Elisa’s

death. She was a French painter and sculptor and the wife of Alphonse de Lamartine, an

important writer and poet. In this article we not only get to know this fairly unknown woman,

but we are also allowed to see his life and work through her eyes. It is highlighted that she

was a “very good and highly-accomplished woman” (EWJ August 1864, 361), who assisted

her husband in every way she could. It is very interesting that Parkes had chosen to write an

article about the wife rather than the husband. This way the reader becomes acquainted with

the other side of the story; with the life of a woman who was married to a famous man. Not

many periodicals would have been interested in her point of view, but the EWJ was.

Furthermore, the line “Madame de Lamartine, who did not herself write for the public, was

well capable of doing so; but she preferred the seclusion of her fireside, though she was

interested in all that went on” (370) emphasises that leading a more secluded, domestic life

does not mean that you are intellectually inferior. Thus the article suggests a reconciliation

between domesticity and the new feminist ideals.

58

The EWJ also includes four articles on British female poets, either to promote their

works or to remember them after they have passed away. The first article is called “Isa Craig

and the Prize Poem on Burns” (EWJ February 1859) and was written by Bessie Parkes. It

reports on how Isa Craig won the prize for the best poem on Robert Burns, but was not

present in the Crystal Palace to receive it. Parkes mentions that the directors and the audience

were disappointed at her absence. By writing this article, she does not only want to draw

attention to a female poet winning a prize, but she also wants to clarify why Craig was not

there: she had quite forgotten about her poem and had never been told it had won. The article

also includes a short account of Isa Craig’s life: that she is a Scottish poet and had written

poems, reviews and essays for the chief Scottish paper ‘Scotsman’, before moving to London

and becoming engaged in the organisation of the National Association for the Promotion of

Social Science. Since the women of the Langham Place Circle are closely involved with this

organisation, Craig became acquainted with Parkes and the EWJ. At the time of the article,

she had already contributed one poem to the periodical. In this article, Parkes promotes three

associated things: the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science (NAPSS),

“which has gained laurels from every quarter, and comprises the worthiest men and women in

the kingdom” (EWJ February 1859, 419), Isa Craig’s work (Poems by Isa “had an extensive

circulation in Scotland, and the poems are marked by great sweetness and elegance” [418])

and her own periodical, the EWJ:

We have only to add in our own behalf, that with the promoters of this Journal

she has from the first been closely associated in personal friendship and in

literary labor, that our leading article of last month was from her pen, and that a

sketch entitled " The Dressmaker's Life," and a lovely poem " The Stranger's

Lair," in our numbers for last June and July, were also contributed by her.

(419)

The second article that promotes a female poet is called “A Factory Violet” (July 1864) and

was written by John Plummer. It draws attention to Ruth Wills’s working-class background

and the toils of children and women working in factories, for she was sent to work in a factory

at the age of eight. One way in which Plummer does this is by inserting Elizabeth Barrett

Browning’s famous poem “Cry of the Children” (1843) into his article, which thematises the

terrible life of child workers. Plummer argues that Ruth Wills’s story of upward struggle

shows “what noble and intelligent minds are to be found amongst our labouring poor” (EWJ

July 1865, 324). She is a self-made woman, whose poetry volume Lays of Lowly Life the EWJ

59

had positively review in the issue of July 1861. Plummer explicitly states the aim of his article

in the following line:

The poetic talents of Miss Wills have been fully recognized by her local

contemporaries, but we are desirous of bringing them yet more prominently

before the world, so that other working maidens, beholding the example of

their sister, may take heart again and press hopefully onward in the battle of

life. (329)

The problem with this noble aim, however, is that the readership of the EWJ consisted

primarily of upper middle-class women. But still, by bringing Ruth Wills’s life and struggles

to the attention of the reader, the writer of the article hopes that something will be done to

improve the situation of factory workers.

Two other poetry articles were written on the occasion of the death of two major

female poets: Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Adelaide Anne Procter. The article on EBB

talks about her mission as a poet, her life, her intellect and her sympathy for the Italian

Revolution. By calling her a “prophet, philosopher, and priest” (EWJ August 1861, 369), the

writer of the article highlights that female poets are equal to male poets, and could thus be

described in the same terms. However, this article in not only linked to the EWJ’s interest in

female authorship, but also to the feminist cause. For although “she shrank, even fastidiously,

from anything which might risk placing woman apart”, she showed sympathy for women and

even signed a “petition which was sent up with regard to the property of married women”

(374). In March 1864 the periodical also published an article by Jessie Boucherett on

Adelaide Anne Procter, after the death of this famous poet. The very first sentence of the

article already mentions that she was a regular contributor to the EWJ, and so Boucherett

draws attention to the close relations between the periodical and this greatly admired poet.

Furthermore, the focus is on her work for The Society for Promoting the Employment of

Women (SPEW) and not on her literary career. Boucherett writes: “[i]t rests with other

periodicals of a purely literary stamp to speak of her as a poet. The readers of the Journal will

be more interested in an account of the part she took in the movement for improving the

condition of women, a far more active part than is generally known” (EWJ March 1864, 18).

In the four volumes of the Victoria Magazine I had access to, only two poetry articles

were included (see graph 20). The first article informs us on “[o]ne of the most successful

series of Readings ever known in London” (VM March 1878, 433), given by the American

poet Ella Dietz. Although it is very short in comparison to the articles in the EWJ, it shares

their intention of promoting a female poet. It does not only positively review her previous

60

readings and poems, but it also recommends her next recitals to the readers, “so that [they]

will have an opportunity of judging for themselves of her ability as an elocutionist” (434).

Similarly to the article on Isa Craig, the writer of the article is keen to point out the relation

between the periodical and the “graceful poetess”: “[r]eaders of the Victoria have long been

familiar with sonnets from Miss Dietz’s pen” (433). This poetry article is similar to the ones

in the EWJ in the sense that they are linked to the Victoria Magazine’s feminist agenda.

However, the latter also has a more mainstream character and aims at a broader audience. The

Victoria’s “greater literary aspirations” (Phegley 154) are reflected in the second poetry

article called “Our Singing Birds. The Nightingale” from May 1868. This article reports on a

male poetry tradition: that of using the figure of the nightingale as an inspiration. The writer

takes the reader on a journey through literary history: from the ancient Greeks to Petrarch,

Chaucer, Sir Thomas Wyatt, Henry Howard, Shakespeare, Milton, Thomas Gray, James

Beattie, Alexander Pope to Lord Byron. Whereas the EWJ chose to focus on female literary

traditions, the Victoria Magazine opted for an article with more mainstream and traditional

subject matter.

I have tried to demonstrate that similarly to the poems and the poetry reviews, the

poetry articles in the EWJ are explicitly linked to the periodical’s socio-political and literary

agendas. By including articles on British and foreign, medieval and contemporary poets, the

EWJ promotes female authorship and establishes a female literary tradition. By including

lines or even whole poems, the periodical wants to promote their work. Furthermore, many

poets were confronted with those things feminists wanted to change – such as oppressive

husbands and inferior education – or were actively involved in changing the lives of women

themselves. The Victoria Magazine on the other hand stays true to its simultaneously feminist

and mainstream character by promoting a female poet, as well as including an article about

the figure of the nightingale in male poetry throughout the centuries.

61

8. Conclusion

In this thesis I have tried to give an answer to the following question: is the poetry in the

English Woman’s Journal and the Victoria Magazine connected to their socio-political and

literary agendas? I started by determining what these agendas are and if they are the same for

both periodicals. The socio-political agenda of the two magazines is very similar. Both are

concerned with the issues related to the Woman Question, like married women’s property,

female emigration and health, and both focus especially on female education and

employment. Their literary agenda is concerned with promoting female authorship and giving

women a voice in the public sphere. However, whereas the EWJ targeted a middle-class

female readership and emphasised its feminist rather than its literary character, the Victoria

Magazine strove for a broader audience and wanted to compete with the popular literary

monthlies. Throughout this thesis I have demonstrated how everything that has to do with

poetry – ranging from the contributors, distribution and topics of poems to poetry reviews and

articles – corresponds to these two agendas.

First of all I have examined the contributors of poetry in the two periodicals. The fact

that 55 percent of the poets in the EWJ are women, and only 12 percent are men, shows that

Parkes wanted to stress her periodical’s feminist agenda and provide women with a forum in

which they could express themselves. The EWJ published major female writers, but also

supported the work of new poets. However, it was not just the sex of contributors which was

important, but also their interests, for many poets were also social reformers, members of the

Langham Place Group or interested in the Woman Question in general. The inclusion of

French poets demonstrates how the periodical established a transnational female literary

tradition and encouraged the education of its readers. The EWJ also included some well-

known male poets to attract readers, but they represent only a very small part of the

periodical. The Victoria Magazine includes more female than male poets as well, but the

percentages lie closer together. Faithfull and Davies hoped that publishing more male

contributors would lead to a higher circulation and a broader audience. And whereas many of

the poets of the EWJ were active in social reform, the poets of the Victoria Magazine had a

greater literary reputation. This magazine incorporated several poems by American writers to

draw readers in with a more international image and to highlight that poets in Britain and the

US share a literary tradition.

Secondly, the distribution of poetry in the EWJ confirms Parkes’s initial unwillingness

to include too much literature, her later understanding that male poets would attract more

62

readers, and the financial trouble of the last two years. The distribution of poems by women in

the EWJ is more or less consistent, demonstrating the importance the editors attached to it.

And although the poems in the Victoria Magazine appear quite irregularly, they are still an

important feature of the periodical. At first the magazine published more male poets to gain a

hearing and to compete with mainstream periodicals, before gradually including more women

to emphasise its feminist character.

Thirdly, I have examined the topics of poetry. In the chapter ‘Poetry about

Contemporary Issues’ I have discussed those poems that deal with the issues and news items

of the nineteenth century. I have shown how these poems can tell us a lot about how the

public and the press conceived particular events, ideologies and changes. Poetry is always

written in a certain time period and can explicitly interact with its particular context. Since the

majority of these poems were written by female poets, it is clear that women could engage

with politics, science, the law, social problems and current events as well. The poems that are

explicitly linked to the periodicals’ socio-political agenda are those that deal with the Woman

Question, in specific with divorce, property, education, gender equality, female roles, the

emigration of unmarried women and Queen Victoria. These poems were inspired by particular

cases, people or events and express new and often revolutionary ideas. The poems that are

classified under ‘poetry about modernity’ thematise the changing world of the nineteenth

century and are first of all a way of dealing with modern inventions and issues, and secondly

present us with an artistic commentary. They show that feminist periodicals were not only

interested in topics related to the Woman Question, but in progression and change in general.

The poems about ‘other current affairs’ were written as a response to certain events and give

voice to the thoughts and feelings the public and the press had about them.

The second part of ‘Topics of Poetry’ consists of an examination of religious, moral

and spiritual poetry. These poems represent the more conventional side of the EWJ and would

have appealed to a broader audience. They deal with very diverse topics and were written by

poets with different religious backgrounds and beliefs. The majority of the poems in this

category were written by women, since writing religious poetry was regarded as a respectable

occupation. And although the four volumes of the Victoria Magazine only include one

spiritual poem, the periodical does not exclude theology, for it is discussed in several essays

and articles. What I have especially tried to demonstrate with this chapter is that religious

poetry is not a filler, but an important part of the periodicals, which reflects the importance of

religion in the lives of many of the magazines’ middle-class contributors and readers.

63

In the poetry about other writers or works, poets enter into dialogue with the works or

lives of their predecessors and thus inscribe themselves into a literary tradition. Literary

foremothers and forefathers are being glorified, and serve as an inspiration to others. In the

chapter entitled ‘Poetry about Nature, Love and Death’ I have demonstrated first of all that

these three topics are interconnected, secondly that together with the religious poetry, they are

part of the more conventional side of the periodicals, and thirdly that they give us an insight

into the Victorians’ vision on these three important elements of life. And finally I have

examined the poetry with mythological and historical references, which was included to

stimulate women intellectually. In conclusion, the chapter on the topics of poetry has revealed

that even though many poems by women are not explicitly feminist, they are still connected to

the magazines’ feminist agenda, because their inclusion means that women are given an

opportunity to express themselves, and because they can teach women about morality, history

or mythology. Furthermore, this chapter has pointed out that the poetry of women conveys

considerable information about the social, political, religious, scientific and literary climates

of the Victorian period.

In the reviews of poetry, the EWJ once more shows its support of female employment

and authorship, since it reviews more female than male poets. Moreover, the reviews of

female poets are almost always positive, in contrast to the reviews of male poets, which are

negative three times out of seven. The reviewers wanted to demonstrate that women are just

as capable of writing good poetry as men are. Additionally, by recommending the poetry

volumes to readers, the reviewers hope that people will buy the volumes and support female

poets financially. The Victoria Magazine on the other hand, reviews 3 male and 4 female

poets, again demonstrating that it strove for a broader audience and put less emphasis on its

feminist agenda. And finally I have discussed the poetry articles in the two periodicals. All the

poetry articles in the EWJ report on female writers. This demonstrates how this particular type

of text is also connected to the periodical’s socio-political and literary agendas. Furthermore,

by including articles on foreign writers, the magazine promotes female authorship beyond

Britain and establishes a transnational female literary tradition. Some poetry articles are even

explicitly concerned with the issues of the Woman Question, like divorce, female

employment and education. And even the articles on women writers whose lives were not

explicitly connected to the women’s movement, contribute to the magazine’s support of

female employment and authorship, since they wrote in a time when this was not self-evident.

The Victoria Magazine stays true to its simultaneously feminist and mainstream character in

64

the poetry articles, by promoting a female poet, as well as including an article about a male

literary tradition.

I hope I have demonstrated that even the parts of the magazine, which at first glance

do not seem to be feminist, can have everything to do with the periodical’s feminist agenda.

In the English Woman’s Journal and the Victoria Magazine, the essays, articles and columns,

as well as the poems, the poetry reviews and poetry articles discuss the same issues and

express similar opinions. And above all, I hope I have proven that poetry does matter to

periodical studies, and that it is so much more than a “frivolous filler” (Ledbetter 6). Finally I

would like to mention that it would have been nice to examine all the volumes of the Victoria

Magazine. I hope that in future somebody will digitise the complete run, since periodicals are

a gold mine of information about the Victorian period.

66

9. Works Cited

Primary Sources

For the English Woman’s Journal I have used the NCSE database (Nineteenth-Century Serials

Edition).

NCSE. King’s College London, 2008. Web. 12 March 2015.

For the Victoria Magazine I have used

Faithfull, Emily, ed. Victoria Magazine. Volume I. London: Victoria Press, 1863. Google

Book Search. Web. 12 March 2015.

Faithfull, Emily, ed. Victoria Magazine. Volume VII. London: Victoria Press, 1866. Google

Book Search. Web. 12 March 2015.

Faithfull, Emily, ed. Victoria Magazine. Volume XI. London: Victoria Press, 1868. Google

Book Search. Web. 12 March 2015.

Faithfull, Emily. “Victoria Magazine. Volume XXX.” Internet Archive, 1878. archive.org.

Web. 12 March 2015.

Secondary Sources

Alban. “Training Schools for Female Servants.” English Woman’s Journal 3.13 March 1859:

1-6. NCSE. Web. 12 April 2015.

“Alfred Lord Tennyson’s ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ (Examiner, 1854).” Popular

Victorian Poetry. University of Victoria, 2013. Web 17 April 2015.

Armstrong, Isobel. Victorian Poetry. Poetry, Poetics and Politics. London: Routledge, 1993.

Print.

67

Black, Robert Monro. The History of Electric Wires and Cables. London: Peter Peregrinus,

1983. Google Book Search. 17 April 2015.

Brake, Laurel, and Demoor Marysa. Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism in Great

Britain and Ireland. Ghent: Academia Press, 2009. Print.

Chapman, Alison. Victorian Poetry Network. University of Victoria, January 2011. Web. 12

March 2015.

Diamond, Marion. Emigration and Empire. The Life of Maria S. Rye. New York: Garland

Publishing, 1999. Google Book Search. 12 April 2015.

Fraser, Hilary and Green, Stephanie and Johnston, Judith. Gender and the Victoria

Periodical. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Print.

Frawley, Maria.”The Editor as Advocate. Emily Faithfull and The Victoria Magazine.”

Victorian Periodicals Review 31.1 (1998): 87-104. Web. 12 March 2015.

Fredeman, William. “Emily Faithfull and the Victoria Press: an Experiment in Sociological

Bibliography.” The Library 29.2 (1974): 139-164. Web. 12 March 2015.

“Funeral of Mr. James Braidwood.” London City Press 6 July 1861: 9. The British Newspaper

Archive. Web. 11 May 2015.

“Goblin Market” (The Spectator). The Spectator Archive, 12 April 1862. Web. 10 May 2015.

Haight, Gordon S. The George Eliot Letters Volume II. New Haven: Yale University Press,

1954. Print.

Hellerstein, Erna Olafson, and Leslie Parker Hume, and Karen M. Offen, eds. Victorian

Women. A Documentary Account of Women’s Lives in Nineteenth-Century England,

France, and the United States. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1981. Print.

68

Herstein, Sheila. “The Langham Place Circle and Feminist Periodicals of the 1860s.”

Victorian Periodicals Review 26.1 (1993): 24-27. Web. 12 March 2015.

Hirsch, Pam. Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon. Feminist, Artist and Rebel. London: Pimlico,

1999. Google Book Search. Web. 12 March 2015.

Hoffman, Joan M. “She Loves with Love That Cannot Tire. The Image of the Angel in the

House across Cultures and across Time.” Pacific Coast Philology 42.2 (2007): 264-

271. Web. 4 May 2015.

Hoffmann, Freia. “Kinkel, Johanna.” Sophie Drinker Institut, 2009. Web. 10 May 2015.

Hogan, Anne and Andrew Bradstock, eds. Women of Faith in Victorian Culture. Reassessing

the Angel in the House. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1998. Print.

Houston, Nathalie M. “Newspaper Poems. Material Texts in the Public Sphere.” Victorian

Studies 50.2 (2008): 233-242. Web. 12 March 2015.

Hughes, Kathryn. The Victorian Governess. London: The Hambledon Press, 1993. Print.

Hughes, Linda K. The Cambridge Introduction to Victorian Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2010. Google Book Search. Web. 12 March 2015.

Hughes, Linda K. “What the Wellesley Index Left Out: Why Poetry Matters to Periodical

Studies.” Victorian Periodicals Review 40.2 (2007): 91-125. Web. 12 March 2015.

Huurdeman, Anton A. The Worldwide History of Telecommunications. John Wiley & Sons:

Hoboken, 2003. Google Book Search 12 April 2015.

Ledbetter, Kathryn. British Victorian Women's Periodicals. Beauty, Civilization, and Poetry.

London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Google Book Search. Web. 12 March 2015.

69

Leighton, Angela, and Margaret Reynolds, eds. Victorian Women Poets. An Anthology.

Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. Print.

Levine, Philippa. "The Humanising Influences of Five O' Clock Tea. Victorian Feminist

Periodicals.” Victorian Studies 33.2 (1990): 293-306. Web. 12 March 2015.

Levine, Philippa. Victorian feminism. 1850-1900. London: Hutchinson, 1987. Print.

McDermid, Jane. The Schooling of Girls in Britain and Ireland, 1800-1900. New York:

Routledge, 2O12. Google Book Search. 15 April 2015.

Miles, Rosie. Victorian Poetry in Context. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013. Google

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Murphy, Ann B., and Deirdre Raftery, eds. Emily Davies. Collected Letters 1861-1875.

Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2004. Google Book Search. Web. 12

April 2015.

Nestor, Pauline. “A New Departure in Women's Publishing. The English Woman's Journal

and The Victoria Magazine.” Victorian Periodicals Review 15.3 (1982): 93-106. Web.

12 March 2015.

“On the Education of Pauper Girls.” English Woman’s Journal 9.53 July 1862: 321-8. NCSE.

Web. 7 May 2015.

Palmer, Beth. Women’s Authorship And Editorship in Victorian Culture. Sensational

Strategies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Print.

Parkes, Bessie Rayner. “A Review of the Last Six Years.” English Woman’s Journal 12.72

February 1864: 361-8. NCSE. Web. 12 April 2015.

Perkin, Joan. Victorian women. London: John Murray Publishers, 1993. Print.

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Peterson, Linda. “On the Appointment of the ‘Poet Laureate to Her Majesty,’ 1892-

1896.” BRANCH: Britain, Representation and Nineteenth-Century History. Ed. Dino

Franco Felluga. Extension of Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net. Web. 16 May

2015.

Phegley, Jennifer. Educating the Proper Woman Reader. Victorian Family Literary

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Pusapati, Teja Varma. “Novel Networks. The Specialité of the English Woman’s Journal.”

Victorian Periodical Review 47.4 (2014): 597-612. Web. 12 March 2015.

Rosenthal, Leslie. The River Pollution Dilemma in Victorian England. Nuisance Law versus

Economic Efficiency. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2014. Google Book Search. 10

May 2015.

Rye, Maria S. “The Colonies and their Requirements.” English Woman’s Journal 8.45

November 1861: 165-71. NCSE. Web. 23 April 2015.

Schroeder, Janice. “Better Arguments. The English Woman’s Journal and the Game of Public

Opinion.” Victorian Periodicals Review 35.3 (2002): 243-271. Web. 12 March 2015.

Shanley, Mary Lyndon. Feminism, Marriage, and the Law in Victorian England. Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1989. Google Book Search. 15 April 2015.

Simons, Gary. “The Curran Index.” Victoria Research Web. March 2015: 1-7. 8 May 2015.

Tusan, Michelle Elizabeth. “Performing Work. Gender, Class, and the Printing Trade in

Victorian Britain.” Journal of Women’s History 16.1 (2004): 103-126. Web. 12 March

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Watson, J.R. “Quiet Angels. Some Women Hymn Writers.” Women of Faith in Victorian

Culture. Reassessing the Angel in the House. Ed. Anne Hogan and Andrew Bradstock.

Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1998. 129-144. Print.

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Wichard, Robin, and Carol Wichard. Victorian Cartes-de-visite. Aylesbury: Shire

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Wiseman, Sharon. “Christina Rossetti and her Contemporaries: Women and Discourse.” The

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Woolf, Virginia. “Professions for Women.” The Death of the Moth, and Other Essays. Ed.

Virginia Woolf. London: Hogarth Press, 1942. Project Gutenberg Australia. Web. 12

May 2015.

72

10. Appendix A: Graphs

59

25

13

11

1: Contributors of Poetry in the EWJ

Women

Unidentified initials

and names

Men

Anonymous poems

95

10

2 1

2: Language of Poetry in the EWJ

English

French

Translated from the

German

German

11

7

4

3

3: Contributors of Poetry in VM

Women

Men

Unidentified initials

and names

Anonymous poems

73

0 0 0 0 0 0

4 4

2

0 0 0 0

5: Distribution of French Poetry in the EWJ

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

3

4

1

2

1

2

6: Distribution of Poetry by Men in the EWJ

8 7

6 6 6 6

10 11 11

10 9

7

11

4: Distribution of Poetry in the EWJ

74

5 5 5

3

2

4

5 5 5

7

5

3

5

7: Distribution of Poetry by Women in the EWJ

9

6

1

10

1 (1863) 7 (1866) 11 (1868) 30 (1877-8)

8: Distribution of Poetry in VM

2 2

0

7

1 (1863) 7 (1866) 11 (1868) 30 (1877-8)

9: Distribution of Poetry by Women in VM

5

1 1 1

1 (1863) 7 (1866) 11 (1868) 30 (1877-8)

10: Distribution of Poetry by Men in VM

75

41

15 14 13 10 10 5

Religious,

moral andspiritual

poetry

Other poetry Poetry about

contemporaryissues

Poetry about

death

Poetry about

nature

Poetry about

love

Poetry about

other writersor works

11: Topics of Poetry in the EWJ

11

6

3 2 2

1

Poetry about

love

Poetry about

nature

Poetry about

death

Poetry about

contemporaryissues

Poetry about

other writers orworks

Religious,

moral andspiritual poetry

12: Topics of Poetry in VM

2

6

0 0 1

3

1 2 2

0 0

3

1

13: Distribution of poetry reviews in the EWJ

12 7

2

14: Poetry Reviews in the EWJ on

Female poets

Male poets

Anonymous

76

10

2

4 3

2

Positive reviews

on female poets

Negative reviews

on female poets

Positive reviews

on male poets

Negative reviews

on male poets

Positive reviews

on anonymouspoetry

15: Positive and Negative Poetry Reviews in the EWJ

1 1

3

2

1 (1863) 7 (1866) 11 (1868) 30 (1877-8)

16: Distribution of Poetry Reviews in VM

4

3

17: Poetry Reviews in VM on

Female poets

Male poets

4

3

0 0

Positive reviews on

female poets

Positive reviews on

male poets

Negative reviews on

female poets

Negative reviews on

male poets

18: Positive and Negative Poetry Reviews in VM

77

0

2 1

0

2 1 1

0 0 0 1

0

3

19: Distribution of Poetry Articles in the EWJ

1

0 0

1

1 (1863) 7 (1866) 11 (1868) 30 (1877-8)

20: Distribution of Poetry Articles in VM

78

11. Appendix B: Overview of Poetry, Poetry Reviews and Articles in the

English Woman’s Journal

Volume 1

Issue 1 March 1858

56-58: Grief (anonymous in the EWJ, poem by Adelaide Anne Procter)

59-63: Notices of Books. The Angel in the House by Coventry Patmore

Issue 2 April 1858

123: Two Graves (B.R.P.)

Issue 3 May 1858

163-4: Light and Dark (I.B. = Isa Blagden)

184-5: The Changed Cross

Issue 4 June 1858

244-5: Lines Suggested by More than One Recent Domestic History (H.G. = Harriet Grote,

November 1855)

259-261: The Stranger’s Lair (Isa Craig)

Issue 5 July 1858

318: A Mystery

341-344: Notices of Books. Legends and Lyrics. A Book of Verses by Adelaide Anne Procter

Issue 6 August 1858

393-395: A Summer Night’s Dreaming (Theodosia Trollope, Florence, June 24th, 1858)

Volume 2

Issue 7 September 1858

45-46: Maximus (A.A.P.)

62-67: Notices of Books. Andromeda and Other Poems by Charles Kingsley

Issue 8 October 1858

100-101: The Track of the Telegraph (L.F. = Louisa Fellows, August 18th, 1858)

136-137: Notices of Books

The Strawberry Girl, with other Thoughts and Fancies in Verse by H. M. Rathbone

Antennae. Poems by Llewellynn Jewitt

Pebbles and Shells by Elizabeth Wilmshurst French

79

Issue 9 November 1858

197-198: The Sea, In Storm

200-203: Notices of Books. The Courtship of Miles Standish and other Poems by Henry

Wadsworth

Issue 10 December 1858

258: Invitation (A.B.E.)

Issue 11 January 1859

297-309: Poetry article. Johanna Kinkel

333: Lines on a Cameo Head of Dante (J.B.S.)

Issue 12 February 1859

414-415: Optimus (A.A.P.)

417-419: Poetry article. Isa Craig and the Prize Poem on Burns (B.R.P.)

419-420: The Ballad of the Brides of Quair (Isa Craig)

425-426: Notices of Books. Hebrew Children. Poetic Illustrations of Biblical Character

Volume 3

Issue 13 March 1859

26: The Old Chateau (B.R.P.)

Issue 14 April 1859

104-106: The River Thames (J.B.S.)

Issue 15 May 1859

171-172: Gibson’s Studio (B.R.P., Rome, April 3rd, 1859)

Issue 16 June 1859

251-251: The Woodroof (Isa Craig)

Issue 17 July 1859

325: Minerva Medica. For E.B. (B.R.P.)

Issue 18 August 1859

370-373: Poetry article. Biographical Notices, Christina of Pisa

388: A Dream of Death (Isa Craig)

80

Volume 4

Issue 19 September 1859

35: Stanzas. (S.A.)

Issue 20 October 1859

98-99: Loss and Gain (Adelaide A. Procter)

Issue 21 November 1859

170: Italian Patriotic Song (E. H., Bristol, May 1859)

Issue 22 December 1859

246-247: A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Oberon Loquitur. (B.R.P.)

Issue 23 January 1860

316-317: New Year’s Wishes (The Editors)

Issue 24 February 1860

398-400: The Lady’s Dilemma (anonymous in the EWJ, poem by Mary Sewell)

Volume 5

Issue 25 March 1860

36: A Lost Chord (A.A.P.)

56-59: Notices of Books. Homely Ballads for the Working Man's Fireside by Mary Sewell

Issue 26 April 1860

99-101: The Mother’s Lament (C.O.)

Issue 27 May 1860

161-173: Poetry article. Elizabeth von Recke

184-185: Requital (A.A.P.)

Issue 28 June 1860

226-234: Poetry article. Elizabeth von Recke

241: God’s Horologe (E.G.H.)

Issue 29 July 1860

321: The Two Laments (From the German, H.L.)

Issue 30 August 1860

397: Epitaph on a Solitary Life (E.S., Boston, Mass.)

81

Volume 6

Issue 31 September 1860

11-20: Poetry article. Madame de Girardin.

32-33: By a Death-Bed (E.G.H.)

Issue 32 October 1860

95 : Ivy Leaves (Isa Craig)

131: Notices of Books. Lucile by Owen Meredith

Issue 33 November 1860

177-178: A Comforter (A.A.P.)

206-211: Notices of Books. Footpaths between Two Worlds and other Poems by Patrick Scott

Poems by Thomas Ashe

Iö in Egypt and other Poems by Richard Garnett

Ionica

Issue 34 December 1860

241-242: A Last Ray of Sunshine (C.M.A.C.)

Issue 35 January 1861

320-321: The Old Year’s Blessing (A.A.P.)

354-356: Notices of Books. Legends and Lyrics: a Book of Verses by Adelaide Anne Procter

Issue 36 February 1861

398: Under the Snow (L.F. = Louisa Fellows)

Volume 7

Issue 37 March 1861

34-35: Pia De’ Tolomei (E.J.)

Issue 38 April 1861

102-104: April Tears (L.F. = Louisa Fellows)

Issue 39 May 1861

177-178: The Legend of the Almond Tree (E.G.H.)

178-180: Un Convoi (Madame Pape- Carpentier)

Issue 40 June 1861

243-244: In Silence (L.F. = Louisa Fellows)

244-245: Prés d’un Berceau

82

Issue 41 July 1861

314-315: The Cypress (M.A.B.)

315-318: Damon et Henriette

347-351: Notices of Books. Lays of Lowly Life by Ruth Wills

Issue 42 August 1861

369-375: Poetry article. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

384-385: Crown and Cross (Isa Craig)

385-386: Le Pêcheur de Sorrente (Madame Emile de Girardin)

Volume 8

Issue 43 September 1861

29-30: The Victor. Written After the Fire in Which James Braidwood Lost His Life (E.B.P.)

30-31: Les Feuilles de Saule (Amable Tastu)

Issue 44 October 1861

88-89: Child and Mother (Ariell Thorn)

89-90: Le Nid de Fauvette (Berquin)

131-133: Notices of Books. Poems by the Author of “The Patience of Hope”

Lyrics and Idylls by Gerda Fay

Issue 45 November 1861

172: The Wind amid the Trees (anonymous in the EWJ, poem by B.R.P.)

Issue 46 December 1861

245: Behold, I Stand at the Door and Knock (Christina G. Rossetti)

246: La Feuille (Arnault)

246: L’Arbre Exotique (Arnault)

Issue 47 January 1862

314-315: Never to Know (Isa Craig)

315: Die Monduhr (anonymous in the EWJ, poem by Robert Reinick)

Issue 48 February 1862

392-393: Joy (Mary Carpenter)

83

Volume 9

Issue 49 March 1862

29: La Pauvre Fille (Soumet)

30-31: Refuge (L.F. = Louisa Fellows)

Issue 50 April 1862

98-99: Drowned (L.F. = Louisa Fellows)

99-100: Longings (John George Fleet)

Issue 51 May 1862

171: Work (L.R.)

172: Un Beau Jour (Mdlle. Elise Moreau)

204-206: Notices of Books. Last Poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

206-208: Notices of Books. Goblin Market and Other Poems by Christina Rossetti

Issue 52 June 1862

240-241: A June Morning (Walter Thornbury)

241-242: Taedium Vitae (Walter Thornbury)

242: Our Shadow (Isa Craig)

Issue 53 July 1862

313-314: A Vision (S.M.E. = Sophie May Eckley)

Issue 54 August 1862

379-380: Charity (A.E.G.)

Volume 10

Issue 55 September 1862

18-19: The Dying Child (Mary Carpenter)

19-20: Extract from Sappho (Mary Hume)

56-57: To the Lord of the Manner Of Merdon

Issue 56 October 1862

92: Light And Shade (L.W. Fellows)

92-93: Alone (I.F. = Isabella Fyvie)

Issue 57 November 1862

163-164: The Triumph of St. Dorothea (Anna M. May)

Issue 58 December 1862

234-236: Life (W.S.D.)

259-260: An Appeal for the Cripples’ Home (Alsager Hay Hill)

84

Issue 59 January 1863

310-311: The Root of Love (Isa Craig)

Issue 60 February 1863

369: Rest in the Lord (Frances Power Cobbe)

Volume 11

Issue 61 March 1863

48: Tolle Lege (W.S.D.)

Issue 62 April 1863

93-94: The First Primrose (Bessie R. Parkes)

Issue 63 May 1863

165-166: Small Trials (E.F.)

216: The Voyage of the John Duncan from Gravesend To Dunedin (Bessie R. Parkes, April

25th, 1863)

Issue 64 June 1863

251-253: The Angel’s Visit (Walter Thornbury)

251: The Meeting of M. Verrier and Adams, Independently Discoverers of the New Planet/

Neptune, at Oxford, June, 1847 (Mary Carpenter)

Issue 65 July 1863

305-316: Poetry article. The Story of Queen Isabel

326: Blanche (Sophia May Eckley)

Issue 66 August 1863

374: Lines Suggested By the Uncovering of the Memorial of the Prince Consort. By The

Author of Queen Isabel (= Menella Smedley Bute)

375-380: Man’s Debt To Woman (Friend Richard)

Volume 12

Issue 67 September 1863

25: The Father and the Mother. Translation from the German. Adolph Schultz. (S.H.)

54-59: Notices of Books. Poems by Jean Ingelow

Issue 68 October 1863

91: Gone Before (Christina G. Rossetti)

85

Issue 69 November 1863

161: Common (Isa Craig)

Issue 70 December 1863

234-245: Christmas

280-283: Notices of Books. Winter Weavings by Isabella Law

283-284: Notices of Books. Life Triumphant by Elizabeth Ann Campbell

Issue 71 January 1864

303: The New-Year Cry Of The Fallen (E.H.R.)

303-305: Miss Lily (John Churchill Brenan)

Issue 72 February 1864

376-377: Friends Again (Herz)

Volume 13

Issue 73 March 1864

15-16: Dies Irae (L.F. = Louisa Fellows)

16-17: Set in Brilliants (F. Schütze Wilson)

16-21: Poetry article. Adelaide Anne Procter (Jessie Boucherett)

Issue 74 April 1864

94: A Spring Bridal Song (Susan Rugeley Powers)

109: In Memoriam Adelaide Anne Procter. (M.M.H. = Matilda M. Hays, Feb., 1864)

142-143: Notices of Books. The Earl’s Choice and other Poems by Sir William A'Beckett,

late Chief Justice of Victoria

Issue 75 May 1864

165: The Mystical Body of Christ (E.N.P.R.)

200-201: Time (E.E.)

Issue 76 June 1864

227-232: Lysias (S.E. Braun)

Issue 77 July 1864

308-309: Hasscoes Of Norway. A Lay of Shetland (Jessie M. Saxby)

324-330: Poetry article. A Factory Violet (John Plummer)

Issue 78 August 1864

361-377: Poetry article. Madame De Lamartine

382-383: The Shepherd And His Flock (Jessie M. Saxby)

409-415: Little Fairy. A Village Story (John Churchill Brenan)

419: A Question (J.F.)

86

Appendix C: Overview of Poetry, Poetry Reviews and Articles in

Victoria Magazine

Volume 1

May 1863

1-2: Victoria Regina

40-41: L.E.L. (Christina G. Rossetti)

June 1863

141: A Reason for Beauty (Thomas Hood)

156-157: Song of the Summer Days (George Mac Donald)

July 1863

234: A Vigil

August 1863

318: Glory And Beauty (Isa Craig)

346-347: Song of the Summer Nights (George Mac Donald)

September 1863

418-419: Songs of the Autumn Days (George Mac Donald)

480: Review. Poems by Jean Ingelow

October 1863

498: The Lighthouse-keeper’s Child (T. Hood)

Volume 7

May 1866

No poetry included

June 1866

142: Sea-Weeds (A.M.)

173: The Messenger Bird (C.E. Lyon)

July 1866

211-213: Clouds (Agnes Stonehewer)

August 1866

300-301: The Exception Proves the Rule (Agnes Stonehewer)

320-321: A Picture of Magyar Rural Life. From the Hungarian of Alexander Petöfi.

Translated by Sir John Bowring

380-381: Review. The Poems of Heine by Edgar Alfred Bowring

87

September 1866

429-431: Sydnor (Isca)

October 1866

No poetry included

Volume 11

May 1868

57-69: Poetry article. Our Singing Birds. The Nightingale

84-94: Review. Chronicles and Characters by the Hon. Robert Lytton (Owen Meredith)

June 1868

No poetry included

July 1868

273-284: Review. Vittoria Colonna, Her Life and Poems by Mrs. Henry Roscoe

August 1868

374-383: Review. New Poems by Matthew Arnold.

September 1868

408: My Mother’s Kiss (William Dorrington)

470-473: Review. The Spanish Gypsy by George Eliot

October 1868

No poetry included

Volume 30

November 1877

1-2: Fancy’s Masquerade (Kate Hillard)

December 1877

87-88: Pictured Autumn Leaves (Mary B. Dodge)

145-146: To-morrow

January 1878

179-180: Drifted Apart (A.B. Le Geyt = Alice Bell Le Geyt)

88

February 1878

271: Sonnet (Ella Dietz)

327-328: Mother (Mary Mapes Dodge)

351: Review. Swallow Flights by Louise Chandler Moulton

352: Review. The Triumph of Love. A Mystical Poem in Songs, Sonnets, and Verse by Ella

Dietz

March 1878

363-364: Two letters (Mary Ellen Edmonde)

407-408: In Futuro (Josephine Pollard)

433-434: Poetry article. Miss Ella Dietz. The New Reader

April 1878

455-456: The Euplectella Speciosa, or The Flower-Basket of Venus (Albert E.W. Goldsmid)

518: In Memory (W.T.B.)