This book studies the print culture of the nineteenth century as it shaped the meanings and the cultural significance of literary works by women writers - Mary Robinson, Felicia Hemans, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Lady Blessington, Lady Morgan, Caroline Norton, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, and others. Colour'd Shadows explains and interprets the physical forms of their books, the economics and politics of production and reception, and the cultural meanings of their literary work, showing how poems, literary annuals, engravings, commercial arrangements, the practices of women editors as well as writers, the politics of gender, the changing means of production, and women's literary relationships unfold in the medium of print and, more largely, the rapidly changing culture of the century.

"British Victorian Women's Periodicals" explores themes and patterns of poetry publication in a variety of women's periodicals published throughout the Victorian era to answer questions about taste, style, and the significance of poetry to our understanding of women's lives in the nineteenth century. Ledbetter shows how the periodical's advice about maintaining or acquiring social respectability through appropriate fashion, good behavior, and regulation of the household is seamlessly integrated with poetry that aimed to inspire, teach, and cultivate feeling. This book questions traditional evaluations of nineteenth-century sentimental poetry, and argues for a consideration of women's poetry within its own cultural milieu.

This book studies the print culture of the nineteenth century as it shaped the meanings and the cultural significance of literary works by women writers - Mary Robinson, Felicia Hemans, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Lady Blessington, Lady Morgan, Caroline Norton, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, and others. Colour'd Shadows explains and interprets the physical forms of their books, the economics and politics of production and reception, and the cultural meanings of their literary work, showing how poems, literary annuals, engravings, commercial arrangements, the practices of women editors as well as writers, the politics of gender, the changing means of production, and women's literary relationships unfold in the medium of print and, more largely, the rapidly changing culture of the century.

Ledbetter explores themes and patterns of poetry publication in a variety of women's periodicals published throughout the Victorian era using taste, style and the significance of poetry to advance our understanding of women's lives in the nineteenth century.