Special Correspondence and the Newspaper Press in Victorian Print Culture, 1850–1886

Catherine Waters is Professor of Victorian Literature and Print Culture at the University of Kent, UK. She is the author of Dickens and the Politics of the Family (1997) and Commodity Culture in Dickens’s Household Words: The Social Life of Goods (2008).

“The phenomenon of palpitating journalism is central to Waters’s Special Correspondence and the Newspaper Press in Victorian Print Culture, 1850–1886. … offers a well-informed, accessible contribution to journalism history.” (Kate Campbell, Victorian Studies, Vol. 62 (4), 2020)"Waters’s study is an achievement, not only for its scholarly contribution but also for how she uses rich textual analysis to immerse the reader in the mid-nineteenth century’s most newsworthy events. With compelling examples and deft writing in her own right, Waters makes visible how special correspondence was a communication technology thatdrove news journalism’s popularity into the late-nineteenth century and beyond.” (Stephan Pigeon, Victorian Periodicals Review, Vol. 53 (2), 2020)“In the true spirit of special correspondence, this scholarly and enjoyable book successfully merges journalistic, literary and political history in what is undoubtedly a major contribution to the field of Victorian print culture.” (Françoise Baillet, Romance, Revolution & Reform, Vol. 2, January, 2020)“This is an exemplary study of a thoroughly specialized subject. Its achievement is to combine prodigious authority in its field with continual reaching out to broader fields and to a broader, nonspecialist readership. … I believe that this splendid book could make even greater impact.” (Michael Hollington, Dickens Quarterly, Vol. 36 (3), September, 2019)

• 1. Introduction.- 2. Armchair Travel.- 3. Technology and Innovation.- 4. War Correspondence.- 5. Home News.- 6. Reporting Royalty.- 7. Celebrity specials on the lecture circuit.- 8. Conclusion.