Contested Liberalisms

Iain Crawford is Associate Professor of English at the University of Delaware. His most recent publications include “Harriet Martineau: Women and the World of Journalism in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Britain.” In Journalism and the Periodical Press in Nineteenth Century Britain. Ed. Joanne Shattock. Cambridge UP, 2017, “Harriet Martineau: Travel and the Writer.” In Harriet Martineau and the Birth of Disciplines. Eds. Valerie Sanders and Gaby Weiner. Farnborough: Ashgate P, 2016, “Massachusetts and America: Dickens, Martineau, and the Republic They Came to See.” In Dickens and Massachusetts: The Lasting Legacy of the Commonwealth Visits. Eds. Diana C. Archibald and Joel J. Brattin. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 2015.

Crawford's book is placed as a highly competitive runner up. It is commended as an impressively weighty and lucid book that negotiates its way carefully through its tripartite interests in liberalism, transatlantic cross-cultural exchange and the development of the periodical press. It offers new approaches to both Martineau and Dickens in its scholarly study of their contrasting contributions to emerging formulations of progressive social theory in ways that richly reveal the intellectual heft and significance of their writings in the context of the development of liberal thought. Crawford draws out the details of their relationship masterfully in this sophisticated and erudite work that is full of rich detail related with minute attention to scholarly conversation. A pleasure to read, this book is an important contribution to the history of the periodical press, to Dickens studies, and especially to our understanding of the importance of Harriet Martineau.

• IllustrationsSeries Editor’s Preface Acknowledgements Introduction ‘The Display of Woman’s Naked Mind to the Gaze of the World’: Harriet Martineau and the Press, 1830–4 Martineau, the Press, and Jacksonian America American Notes and the ‘frightful engine’ of the Press ‘Yield to the mighty mind of the Popular Instructor’: Print and the Press in Martin Chuzzlewit ‘Called hither by the commotion of the times’: Martineau and the Press, 1837–50 The Factory Controversy: ‘What I dread is being silenced’ The End of Whig History: Dickens, Martineau and the Mid-Victorian Press Conclusion Bibliography Index