British Writers, Popular Literature and New Media Innovation, 1820-45

[headline]The emergence of a mass reading public during the early decades of the nineteenth century sparked a period of creative innovation in the popular press While today we might associate 'new media' with digital technologies, such innovations have a long history that precedes - and in many ways anticipates - the present moment. This collection reveals how the period between 1820 and 1845 was crucial in the development of the modern press, including experimentation with new publication formats; the reinvention and remediation of older forms; and the definition of new kinds of contributors and audiences for print. It brings to light the contributions of many important but long-forgotten writers, illustrators and editors who created and harnessed the idea of a mass reading public and shows how steam printing, popular education campaigns and new technologies of illustration led to new trends in book and periodical production. [bio]Alexis Easley is Professor of English at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. She is the author of First-Person Anonymous: Women Writers and Victorian Print Media, 1830-70 (2004) and Literary Celebrity, Gender, and Victorian Authorship, 1850-1914 (2011). She has also co-edited four books, most recently Women, Periodicals, and Print Culture in Britain, 1830s-1900s, with Clare Gill and Beth Rodgers (2019).