This lecture will familiarise students with important aspects of literary communication in Britain during the specified period. This includes an account of the development of already existing genres (such as the historical novel or the comedy of manners) and of newly-established literary kinds (such as crime fiction or the 'dramatic monologue' in poetry). While those familiar concepts will be dealt with in connection with the writings of well-known authors such as Dickens, the Brontë sisters, Thackeray, George Eliot, Hardy, Tennyson, Wilde or Shaw, this is, however, not going to be the end of the story. The lecture is not restricted to a presentation of celebrated authors and the particular merits of their texts, but will attempt to integrate this into a more comprehensive account. Thus, other topics to be dealt with include for instance the changing relationship between author, publisher and reader during the period; the rôle of the magazine as a literary medium and of institutions such as the circulating library or the music hall; and the literary treatment of sexuality in connection with then-contemporary morals and mentalities.