Reviewed by:

• Contested Liberalisms: Martineau, Dickens and the Victorian Press by Iain Crawford
• Deborah A. Logan (bio)

Iain Crawford’s Contested Liberalisms: Martineau, Dickens and the Victorian Press investigates the professional links between Harriet Martineau and Charles Dickens, two of the most lionized and, at times, notorious literary celebrities of the Victorian era. Both Martineau and Dickens were formidably strong-willed individuals, each making distinctive marks on the period’s literary and cultural landscapes. Inevitably, their paths crossed in various ways. They formed a compelling literary collaboration, and their falling out was intensely acrimonious. Three primary threads shape Crawford’s study: transatlantic socio-cultural exchanges, Anglo-American liberalism, and the growth of the nineteenth-century periodical press. While this study finds little alignment between Martineau and Dickens regarding the American Experiment, the evolution of Victorian periodicals and each author’s signature contributions to that development provide unifying ground. Contested Liberalisms is less about Dickens the novelist or Martineau the interdisciplinary intellectual than a comparative study of the two in the contexts of Victorian journalism and historical perspectives.

Given the differences separating Martineau and Dickens, a few key ideas provide a useful starting point. Martineau’s lifelong personal and professional relationship with American people and ideology is best seen through the lenses of her gender, her open-minded optimism about the American Experiment, her sociological concern with morals and manners as a measure of civilization, and her commitment to the abolition of slavery, [End Page 634] so vividly dramatized by her association with American abolitionists. Other considerations include the length of her stay—two years, divided between North and South—hosted by the transatlantic Unitarian network that welcomed her as a sister. Thus, Martineau had access to both public and domestic spaces, and her American experience marked a definitive turning point in her long career.

Charles Dickens, notably outspoken against educated, opinionated women, had a quite different experience, from a difficult ocean crossing and rough rooming-house accommodations to his disappointment in America and Americans, furthered by the negative reception of his American Notes (1842). During a sojourn of only six months in 1842, he did not travel farther south than the mid-Atlantic region of Richmond, Virginia, which accords with his comparative disengagement from the slavery question. Whereas for Martineau America represented a progressive ideology still in the making, Dickens could see only what it was not: English culture and European civilization. He was “disillusioned” by America, “scathing in his assessment of its prospects and deeply ambivalent about its newspapers” (95). His perspective “assumes America’s cultural subordination to England as a given . . . a subaltern relationship” (96). The very landscape is “in every possible stage of decay, decomposition, and neglect”; the Sandusky River is “sluggish,” the Mississippi “a slimy monster hideous to behold . . . an enormous ditch . . . running liquid mud” (104–5). For Dickens, far from a pristine New World, America represented a primitive heart of darkness.

This study begins and ends by revisiting Ken Fielding and Anne Smith’s influential 1999 study of the bitter feud over the Factory Controversy that severed Martineau and Dickens’s professional relationship. In between, Crawford provides in-depth analyses of the American journeys of each author, their resulting publications, and the impact of each author on the evolving phenomenon of mass media. Crawford examines Martineau’s 1832 analysis of Walter Scott, which signified her recognition of the ideological shifts wrought by industrialized, Reform-era society and the consequent need for a new literature appropriate to the concerns of the age. His reading of Martineau’s little-known “The Scholars of Arneside” (1834) as an anticipation of her subsequent thinking about universal literacy and its link with affordable mass media is also welcome.

Crawford’s treatment of Martineau’s American tour (1834–36) addresses her commentary on the press, Jacksonian politics, republican motherhood, and her conflicted relationship with Caroline Gilman, editor of the Southern Rose. The latter episode is especially relevant to a study of the transatlantic press and provides revealing insights into the roles of Southern white women in the social politics of...

审核人：

• 有争议的自由主义：伊恩·克劳福德（Iain Crawford）的马蒂诺，狄更斯和维多利亚时代的新闻
• 黛博拉·洛根（生物）

伊恩·克劳福德的有争议的自由主义：马蒂诺，狄更斯和维多利亚时代的新闻社调查哈里特·马丁诺（Harriet Martineau）和查尔斯·狄更斯（Charles Dickens）之间的专业联系，查尔斯·狄更斯是维多利亚时代最有名的两个文学名人，有时甚至是臭名昭著的文学名人。马蒂诺（Martineau）和狄更斯（Dickens）都是意志坚强的人，各自在这一时期的文学和文化景观上都留下了鲜明的印记。他们的道路不可避免地以各种方式交叉。他们形成了引人注目的文学合作，而且他们的争夺激烈。克劳福德的研究形成了三个主要方面：跨大西洋的社会文化交流，英美自由主义和19世纪期刊出版的发展。尽管这项研究发现Martineau和Dickens在美国实验方面几乎没有什么一致性，有争议的自由主义与小说家狄更斯或跨学科知识分子马丁诺有关，而不是在维多利亚时代新闻业和历史观点的背景下对两者进行比较研究。

考虑到Martineau和Dickens之间的区别，一些关键思想提供了有用的起点。从性别，对美国实验的开明乐观，对道德和举止作为文明手段的社会学关注，以及对废除死刑的承诺，可以最好地看出马蒂诺与美国人和思想体系之间终生的个人和专业关系。奴隶制，[完页634]她与美国废奴主义者的交往生动生动地演绎了她的故事。其他考虑因素包括她的逗留时间（南北之间为两年），由跨大西洋的一神论网络主持，该网络欢迎她作为姐姐。因此，马丁诺（Martineau）可以同时使用公共场所和家庭场所，而她的美国经历标志着她漫长的职业生涯中的一个最终转折点。

查尔斯·狄更斯（Charles Dickens）特别是直言不讳地反对受过良好教育的有思想的女性，经历了截然不同的经历，从艰难的越洋航行和粗糙的寄宿房到他对美国和美国人的失望，以及对他的美国债券的负面接受（1842）。在1842年仅六个月的逗留期间，他没有比弗吉尼亚州里士满的大西洋中部地区更南行，这符合他相对脱离奴隶制问题的相对参与。对于马蒂诺美国来说，仍然代表着一种进步的意识形态，而狄更斯只能看到的不是：英国文化和欧洲文明。他被美国“幻灭了”，“在评估自己的前景时sc之以鼻，对报纸深感矛盾”（95）。他的观点“假定了美国对英国的文化从属地位。。。子关系”（96）。真正的风景是“处于衰减，分解和忽视的每个可能阶段”；桑达斯基河是“缓慢的”，密西西比河是“令人发指的黏糊糊的怪物”。。。巨大的沟渠。。。流液泥”（104-5）。

这项研究的开始和结束是重新审视肯·菲尔丁（Ken Fielding）和安妮·史密斯（Anne Smith）于1999年发表的关于工厂之争的有影响力的研究，该论断断绝了马蒂诺和狄更斯的专业关系。在这两者之间，克劳福德（Crawford）对每位作者的美国历程，其出品的出版物以及每位作者对不断发展的大众媒体现象的影响进行了深入分析。克劳福德（Crawford）研究了马丁诺（Martineau）1832年对沃尔特·斯科特（Walter Scott）的分析，这表明她认识到工业化，改革时代社会造成的意识形态转变以及随之而来的需要适合该年龄问题的新文献的需求。也欢迎他读马丁内奥的鲜为人知的“阿内塞德学者”（1834年），以预见她随后对普及素养及其与负担得起的大众媒体的联系的思考。

克劳福德（Crawford）对马蒂诺（Marteaueau）的美国之行（1834–36）的对待，阐述了她对新闻界的评论，杰克逊主义政治，共和党的母亲身份以及她与《南玫瑰》（Southern Rose）编辑卡罗琳·吉尔曼（Caroline Gilman）之间的矛盾关系。后一集与跨大西洋新闻界的研究特别相关，并提供了对南方白人妇女在墨西哥社会政治中的作用的揭示性见解。