Edinburgh Review

Edinburgh Review, Volume I (October 1802-January 1803). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Edinburgh Review was a name of several Scottish magazines. Most commonly it refers to the magazine founded in 1802, which became an influential British magazine of the 19th century. It ceased publication in 1929.

18th century

The earliest Edinburgh Review was a short-lived venture initiated in 1755 by the Select Society, a group of Scottish men of letters concerned with the Enlightenment goals of social and intellectual improvement. According to the preface of the inaugural issue, the journal's purpose was to "demonstrate 'the progressive state of learning in this country' and thereby to incite Scots 'to a more eager pursuit of learning, to distinguish themselves, and to do honour to their country.'" As a means to these ends, it would "give a full account of all books published in Scotland within the compass of half a year; and ... take some notice of such books published elsewhere, as are most read in this country, or seem to have any title to draw the public attention." Among the most notable of the foreign publications it observed was Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality, which Adam Smith reviewed in the journal's 2nd and final issue, published in March 1756. Its premature folding was due in large part to the partisan attacks the Moderate editors received from their opponents in the Church of Scotland, the Popular Party.

Another short-lived magazine with similar purposes, Edinburgh Magazine and Review, was published monthly between 1773 and 1776. It was founded by Gilbert Stuart, who pursued an aggressive editorial line that eventually led to the magazine's demise. The major writers, in addition to Stuart, were William Richardson of Glasgow, William Baron, Thomas Blacklock, Rev. Alexander Gillies, and printer William Smellie.

19th century

The most famous variant, The Edinburgh Review; or, Critical journal, was launched on 10 October 1802 by Francis Jeffrey, Sydney Smith and Henry Brougham as a political and literary magazine. The magazine took its Latin motto judex damnatur ubi nocens absolvitur (the judge is condemned when the guilty is acquitted) from Publilius Syrus. It was published by Archibald Constable in quarterly issues until 1929.

Under its original permanent editor, Francis Jeffrey (the very 1st number was edited by Sydney Smith), it was a strong supporter of the Whig party and laissez-faire politics, and regularly called for political reform. Its main rival was the Quarterly Review which supported the Tories. The magazine was also noted for its attacks on the Lake Poets, particularly William Wordsworth.

Notable contributors

• Thomas Arnold
• Richard Harris Barham
• Henry Brougham
• Thomas Brown
• Thomas Carlyle
• Ugo Foscolo
• Henry Hallam
• William Hamilton
• Abraham Hayward
• William Hazlitt
• Felicia Hemans
• Francis Horner
• Leigh Hunt
• Francis Jeffrey
• George Cornewall Lewis
• Thomas Babington Macaulay
• Sir James Mackintosh
• John Ramsay McCulloch
• John Stuart Mill
• Robert Montgomery
• John Playfair
• Henry Reeve
• Henry Enfield Roscoe
• Bertrand Russell
• Charles William Russell
• Sir Walter Scott
• Sismondi
• Sydney Smith
• Herbert Spencer
• Arthur Penrhyn Stanley

20th century

In 1984, the Scottish cultural magazine New Edinburgh Review, originally founded in 1969, explicitly adopted the title Edinburgh Review from issue 67/8, taking the motto To gather all the rays of culture into one. It is still published, and was a member of the Eurozine network from 2007 until 2012. The most famous issues of the New Edinburgh Review were the 1974 issues, supervised by C.K. Maisels, that discussed the philosophy of Antonio Gramsci.

See also

• List of literary magazines

References

• Shattock, Joanne. Politics and Reviewers: the Edinburgh and the Quarterly in the Early Victorian Age. London, Leicester, and New York: Leicester University Press, 1989.
• Christie, William. The Edinburgh Review in the Literary Culture of Romantic Britain. London, Pickering & Chatto, 2009.

External links

Text

• Facsimile of first edition
• Edinburgh Review at The Hathi Trust
• Current edition website

About

• The Edinburgh Review; or, The critical journal in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Edinburgh Review at Spartacus Educational
• "The Debut of the Edinburgh Review, 1802" by Ina Ferris