RSVP

The Research Society for Victorian Periodicals

Members News

Postgraduate Research Blog Launch

We are delighted to announce the launch of our postgraduate research blog.

The Research blog area is a space for our postgraduate students to showcase their research projects and for the wider RSVP community to read and enjoy!

Each post will include the contact details of our featured writer. We encourage you to get in touch with them for further discussion of the topics raised.

Our inaugural post comes from Ann M. Hale (University of Greenwich) and is entitled ‘On Serendipity.’ You can read it here.

If you would like to write a blog post for the website please contact Helena Goodwyn at graduate@rs4vp.org.

Announcing the Launch of the Vann Victorian Collection

A lot of us will know the name J. Don Vann from the landmark collections that he edited with Rosemary VanArsdel: Victorian Periodicals: A Guide to Research (1978; 1989) Victorian Periodicals and Victorian Society (1994), and Periodicals of Queen Victoria’s Empire (1996). Don, a founding member of RSVP, has now donated the vast collection of Victorian books and magazines — including many rare part-issues — that he and his wife, Dolores, have assembled since 1962 to the University of North Texas Libraries.

The Vann Victorian Collection, which includes a permanent funds to purchase additional Victorian books for the collection,, has officially opened at the UNT Libraries. An online virtual exhibit includes a video interview with Don Vann in which he talks about RSVP, Dickens, and many other aspects of his career.

Popular History in Victorian Magazines Database – NOW AVAILABLE!

Popular History in Victorian Magazines Database (PHVM) <http://phvm.ub.uni-freiburg.de/index.php?site=intro>

 

Periodicals were an essential part of, and reflected all aspects of Victorian culture, including the Victorians’

interest in the past. The Popular History in Victorian Magazines Database (PHVM) derives from a project on popular presentations of history in Victorian magazines:

 

“Histories for the Many: Historical Lifeworlds in Victorian Family, Women’s and Children’s Periodicals” –

“Geschichte(n) für viele: Historische Lebenswelten in Familien-, Frauen- und Kinderzeitschriften des viktorianischen England” (KO 1195/15-1) <http://portal.uni-freiburg.de/historische-lebenswelten/projekte/BK_DL>

in the context of the Research Group DFG FOR 875 “History in Popular Cultures of Knowledge” – “Historische Lebenswelten in populären Wissenskulturen der Gegenwart”

<http://portal.uni-freiburg.de/historische-lebenswelten>.

 

The database presents results from a content analysis of five Victorian magazines from different sectors of the periodicals market – All the Year Round, The Leisure Hour, The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine, The Ladies’ Treasury, and The Boy’s Own Magazine – for the years 1860, 1865 and 1870. It makes visible some of their common trends and significant differences. It thus indicates that mid-Victorian popular historical culture was marked by both mainstream interests and significant internal diversification.