Tennyson and Victorian Periodicals: Commodities in Context (review)

Queen Victoria reigned as the British monarch for 63 years (1837–1901), and for 42 of those years (1850–1892), Alfred, Lord Tennyson served as Poet Laureate, or poet of the nation. The two shared ideas about duty, steadfastness of character, heroism, and patriotism, qualities that endeared them both to the Victorian citizen. And they also shared an antipathy to the rise of periodical literature—he, because he feared loss of control over his work once it left his hands, and she, because she disliked “the aggressive production of texts and the resultant loss of control” (143). Yet neither could escape the inexorable march of periodical publication throughout the century, brought about by constantly improving technology and wide proliferation of a literate reading public.

Tennyson, during his long career, maintained a love/hate relationship with periodical publication of his work, whether early in annuals or later in major journals, and whether in British or American publications. On the one hand, he needed the income and exposure to the public that journalism offered, while on the other he deplored loss of control that spasmodic publication threatened, as well as the ultimate commodification of his “art.” Ledbetter’s study offers the first book-length account of the poet’s relationship with the Victorian press, charting his career from the first prize-winning poem “Timbuctoo,” which was published in the Cambridge Chronicle and Journal on July 10, 1829, to his last public utterance as Poet Laureate, “On the Death of the Duke of Clarence and Avondale” (son of Edward VII and heir apparent to the British throne), which was published in the Nineteenth Century in February 1892.

Although a slender volume, every section of this book is just packed with new material, based on detailed and wide-ranging archival research. The first chapter presents a definitive look at the history, evolution, and eventual disappearance of the literary annual (labeled by Tennyson as those “vapid” gift books), with their watered silk covers, tooled leather, and elaborate engravings, intended more for drawing room ornamentation than for serious reading. Nevertheless, nearly every important author of the 1820s and 1830s, Tennyson among them, appeared in this format, where editors paid high fees for contributions. Despite his scorn for the genre, Tennyson submitted his work for “much needed exposure to a burgeoning new middle class reader” and for preparation “for the [much later] role of Poet Laureate” (9). By the 1850s annuals were outdated but Tennyson had used them profitably to launch his career.

Other chapters show the poet wrestling with commercialization of his work, and later, as his reputation grew, with the struggle between the public and private lives of a poet. His wife Emily, who took an active interest in the ethical and economic aspects of her husband’s work, disliked his publication in journals and preferred the slender volume instead, but she did not prevail. Tennyson’s war poetry, often severely criticized by later commentators, nonetheless had the effect of dramatizing an event, such as “The Defense of Lucknow” or “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” and preserving it for posterity. Another segment of Tennyson’s work, what Ledbetter refers to as “laureate poetry,” addressed the royal family or their concerns, where he adopted the “poetic voice of the State” (143). In all of these roles Tennyson clearly felt connected to his readers in an heroic or patriotic way.

In a final provocative chapter, Ledbetter examines Tennysonian fortunes in America, where all English authors in the nineteenth century struggled with absence of copyright restrictions. She suggests that in Tennyson’s case this worked in his favor, allowing editors endless cutting and pasting of his longer poems, such as The Princess or In Memoriam, thereby increasing his readership and reputation, and in some cases his pocketbook. Thus his work became even more widely beloved in America than in Britain due to a wider familiarity.

One of the great strengths of this book is to be found in its indices, A, B, and...