The Edinburgh History of the British and Irish Press

A thorough account of newspaper and periodical press history in Britain and Ireland from 1800-1900

This is a unique collection of essays examining nineteenth-century British and Irish newspaper and periodical history during a key period of change and development. It covers an important point of expansion in periodical and press history across the four nations of Great Britain (England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales), concentrating on cross-border and transnational comparisons and contrasts in nineteenth-century print communication.

Designed to provide readers with a clear understanding of the current state of research in the field, in addition to an extensive introduction, it includes forty newly commissioned chapters and case studies exploring a full range of press activity and press genres during this intense period of change. Along with keystone chapters on the economics of the press and periodicals, production processes, readership and distribution networks, and legal frameworks under which the press operated, the book examines a wide range of areas from religious, literary, political and medical press genres to analyses of overseas and émigré press and emerging developments in children's and women's press.

David Finkelstein is a cultural historian specialising in media history, Victorian print culture and book history studies whose works include Movable Types: Roving Creative Printers of the Victorian World, An Introduction to Book History and the co-edited Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland, vol. 3, 1880-2000 (Edinburgh University Press, 2007).