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In 1965 I had my initiation into Victorian periodicals when I began my dissertation on the critical reception of David Copperfield in London newspapers. At the time the study of periodicals was pretty much virgin territory, but I did have a slight introduction through two of my professors at Texas Tech. Knowing that Alan Lang Strout had done pioneering work on Blackwood's Magazine, I sat down with the run in the library and became immediately hooked. Also, I had an excellent guide in my major professor, Roger Brooks, who had used London newspapers in his dissertation on Matthew Arnold. In 1965 I spent the summer at the British Library Newspaper Library at Colindale tracking down reviews of Copperfield and then completed the dissertation in 1967. I was awed by the prospect of the vast unexplored territory of Victorian periodicals with its potential as a source for research in so many disciplines and was thrilled with the announcement of the formation of the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals. William E. Fredeman's "RSVP: A Proposal for Discussion" (VPN, no. 5/6, September 1969, p. 5) listed a series of suggestions, the second of which was "A Bibliography of publications on Victorian periodicals might appear as an annual feature of VPN, the preparation of which would be assigned to an elected or appointed RSVP bibliographer." I could see that such an annual list would be valuable to all sorts of |
