SUSAN BROWNparticipated in the "public sphere" notwithstanding their exclusion from
formal political representation and commercial and professional affairs.
Even if she upheld domestic ideals, it is vital to note that a poetess was very
much a public woman whose writings circulated in a variety of printed
forms. Moreover, apparent celebrations of ideology by poets such as
Hemans may reveal incisive critiques of colonialism, domesticity, and
militarism.
The marked tension between domestic ideals and the professional work
of the poetess becomes clear when we look closely at how this figure came
into the public eye through an innovative and highly profitable mode of
publication. During the 1820s and 1830s, the annuals or literary gift books
became one of most popular outlets for poetry. The first annual in England
was The Forget-Me-Not, which appeared in 1823 on the model of literary
almanacs that enjoyed commercial success in Germany. Directed at the
Christmas and New Year market in Britain and its colonies, these gift
books were produced in the autumn with titles such as The Keepsake,
Friendship's Offering, The Amulet or Christian and Literary Remem-
brancer, the Literary Souvenir, and the Oriental Annual, or Scenes in India.
Beginning as quite plain little books with a small number of engraved
illustrations and a large quantity of text, the annuals quickly became much
more lavishly illustrated and were often beautifully bound in watered silk
or embossed leather with gilt decoration. Their illustrations and bindings
became major selling points. By 1832, sixty-three gift books were in
production. 24 Their popularity waned by the middle of the 1850s, although
some continued into the twentieth century.
Editors of annuals could make hundreds of pounds. L.E.L., for example,
who had experience editing the popular Fisher's Drawing Room Scrapbook
in 1832, was paid £300 for editing the Book of Beauty the following year.
Marguerite, Countess of Blessington took over the Book of Beauty in 1834,
and with her income from this, other annuals, and additional writings, she
was believed to be earning the astonishing sum of between two and three
thousand pounds per annum. 25 The competition among publishers for
renowned literary or aristocratic editors and writers who could contribute
to the quality or marketability of their firm's annual meant that extremely
large sums were spent in editors' and authors' fees. Scott was rumored to
have made £400 for a short story in The Keepsake; he certainly received
£100 for "The Bonnets of Bonnie Dundee" (1828).2<5 Even more modest
remuneration compared very well to the amount that a woman would earn
from employment as a governess, one of few "respectable" occupations
available to middle-class women, for which she might earn between £25
and £100 per year. And, as has often been observed, writing had the
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