[This is the abstract for my paper at the Midwest Victorian Studies Assocation (MVSA), held at the University of Iowa on 19-21 April 2024. The newspapers I discussed in the final paper were the Leeds Intelligencer; the Liverpool Mercury; and the Public Ledher. I’ll try and post the full paper here at some point.]

My paper considers the evolving form of the newspaper as it shifted from something that imagined an archival future to something that spoke only to readers in the present. Whereas in the early period London weeklies and provincial papers had volume numbers and a pagination sequence that ran through the volume, around mid century they began to abandon this format for that of the London dailies, numbering issues only and restarting pagination with every issue. While not many newspapers were filed, let alone bound, this textual apparatus at least acknowledged the possibility of retrospective reading and so readers to come. In discarding it, newspapers both privileged readers in the present and disregarded their own archival afterlives The value of newspapers was well-recognised in the period, and, as I have discussed elsewhere, there were attempts to compensate for this orientation to the present through catalogues and indexes. In my paper for MVSA, however, I want to explore why newspapers made these changes. Taking case studies from the London and provincial press, I will set out how publications managed this alteration in format and presented it to readers. The Liverpool Mercury, for instance, eased readers into the new archival regime, maintaining volume numbers and pagination through the volume alongside a new pagination sequence that restarted for every issue. Through these case studies I consider the virtual presence of readers to come, tacitly acknowledged in the apparatus they discard, and, sometimes, also acknowledged in the stated reasons why. There is considerable generic fluidity between the weekly periodical and newspaper yet the presence, or otherwise, of features like continuous pagination, volume numbers, and title pages, seems to serve as a significant generic marker. My paper considers the stability of this marker, what it means for how publications situate themselves in time, and why the newspaper adopted its modern form when it did.