Sell’s Dictionary of the World’s Press: Chronicler and Promoter of the Media Industry

The newspaper press directories are a rich resource for students and scholars of the nineteenth century, though they remain under-researched. This article seeks to raise awareness about the value of these annual volumes by focusing attention on one of the most prominent, Sell’s Dictionary of the World’s Press. I suggest that in Sell’s Dictionary we see the ways the press industry represented and constructed the complex media networks of which it was a part. Furthermore, Sell’s Dictionary helps us understand the press as a key feature in the media and communications network that was spreading globally at the end of the nineteenth century.