1. M. Wolff, J. North and D. Deering (eds), The Waterloo Directory of Victorian Periodicals, 1824–1900: Phase I (Waterloo, Ontario, 1976) identifies roughly 24 600 periodicals. See also J. North, ‘The Waterloo Directory of Victorian Periodicals: A Report’, VPN, VIII (1975) 69–78, which suggests a further 20 000 titles may be still waiting to be identified. See also Scott Bennett, ‘Prolegomenon to Serials Bibliography: A Report to the Society’, VPR, XII (1979) 3–15.
2. John Thompson, Studies in the Theory of Ideology (Oxford, 1984) p. 4. See also discussion of this phrase in Deborah Cameron, ‘What is the Nature of Women’s Oppression in Language?’, Oxford Literary Review, VIII (1986) 82–4 and the general argument in Deborah Cameron, Feminism and Linguistic Theory (London, 1985), to which I am indebted.
3. For example, the importance of motives other than profit in relation to the Manchester press is extensively evidenced in F. Leary, History of the Manchester Periodical Press (1903), unpublished MS in Manchester Central Reference Library Archives. See also discussion in A.J. Lee, ‘The Management of a Victorian Local Newspaper’, Business History, XV (1973) 140.
4. Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, rev. edn, trans. Wade Baskin (Glasgow, 1974) especially p. 17. Jacques Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, trans. Alan Sheridan, new edn (Harmondsworth and New York, 1986) p. 20.
5. Marjorie Plant, The English Book Trade: An Economic History of the Making and Sale of Books (London, 1974) shows clearly how developments in print and paper technology were pioneered in the periodical press. See especially pp. 274, 283, 289.