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This thesis examines the periodical culture that operated in late eighteenth-century Britain (predominantly though not exclusively in London) and the ways in which it made the female ‘stars’ of the stage. I propose that actresses’ celebrity was in part made in the media; the press coverage they received has not had the same attention as their treatment through other media, such as the memoir or portraiture. Through a combination of literary and cultural analysis, this thesis examines the ‘media texts’ that circulated in the periodical press about three contemporaneous actresses: Sarah Siddons, Elizabeth Farren and Mary Wells. Three central questions drive this thesis. What role did the periodical press play in the development of actresses’ celebrity in the late eighteenth century? What rhetorical strategies were used in the newspapers to represent actresses’ public identities and how did these verbal images correspond with other media? How did readers and subjects engage with news media as a shared space for shaping celebrity identities? In exploring answers to these questions this work aims to contribute to the ongoing reevaluation of the centrality of media in early celebrity and to an understanding of the daily, weekly and monthly circulation of motifs that created and sustained celebrity identities. It also makes the case that an emergent celebrity culture in this period was shaped in and through an exploration of gendered (female) performance and the limits of its agency. Part I describes the media landscape in relation to the stage. Chapter 1 describes the ways in which the stage represented newspapers and their reception. Chapter 2 turns to the ways in which newspapers represented the stage. Part II offers case studies. Chapter 3 argues that the press treated ambivalently Sarah Siddons’s background as a stroller. Chapter 4 focuses on the kind of ‘credit’ newspapers accorded Elizabeth Farren’s portrayal of the character of the ‘lady’ on and off stage. And Chapter 5 demonstrates that, despite her close association with newspapers, Mary Wells failed to secure the kind of celebrity she craved through the press.