ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the representation and treatment of George Eliot, a writer whose own career was significantly shaped by her work in the periodical press. Researching the relationship between two periodicals – considering their differences or similarities in terms of price, readership, place of publication, contributors, editorial practice, and prevalent themes, among other factors – can reveal a great deal about individual publications as well as about nineteenth-century periodicals more broadly. Yet it is also important to bear in mind the possible fractures that may exist within the apparently coherent textual identity of a periodical. Researching the relationship between two periodicals may help to reveal internal conflicts within individual periodicals. The resultant contradictions in textual identity offer insights into individual girls' periodicals and conceptions of girlhood and girls' culture during the late nineteenth century. Factors such as price, implied readership, place of publication, distribution, and circulation are important points of consideration when researching the relationship between two periodicals.
