Abstract
Graham Law's book explores the rise of the periodical press from a sociological perspective by focusing on its social and political consequences. The analysis builds on the ideas of journalist E. S. Dallas – a Scotsman who was a journalist for The Times in the nineteenth century. What Law focuses on is Dallas's article ‘Popular Literature: The Periodical Press’ in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. The volume embarks ‘on a detailed discussion of the validity of Dallas's premises and his conclusions regarding authorship, publishing, and readership, considering not just the mid-Victorian decades when Dallas himself was active as a journalist but the nineteenth century as a whole’ (p. 8). The book is split into two introductory chapters and then two main parts presenting the quantitative growth of the periodical market and the qualitative analysis in relation to authorship, publishing and readership. It is commendable that at a time when the academic literature is so hugely pre-occupied with current trends, Law has shown that there is real merit in looking back at media and journalism history.