Writing for the Masses: Ouida and Newspaper Syndication

Jordan discusses prolific female author Ouida (Maria Louise Ramé) who produced work across a range of genres. Examining Ouida’s relationship with publishers, Jordan illuminates the world of publishing contracts for women writers in the 1880s. Revealing the pressures that Ouida was under from publishers who sought contracts not only for book publication but also for serialisation and syndication rights, Jordan shows how publishers profited at Ouida’s expense at a time when publishing impetus sought to appeal to mass readerships by expansion of serialisation and syndication in popular and provincial newspapers. Focusing on the negotiation of publishing terms for Ouida’s novels Othmar (1885) and Guilderoy (1889), Jordan also argues that Othmar is an anti-romance which intentionally subverts Ouida’s typical plots whilst Guilderoy is a refutation of her best-selling sensational romance, Moths (1880). The chapter suggests, too, that Ouida deliberately published her short stories ‘The Adder’ (Sept 1888) and ‘The Bullfinch’ (July 1889) in the expensive art journal, Art and Letters; An Illustrated Review to reflect upon her recent experience of the very different literary market of newspaper syndication.