E dinburgh R eview Set

Abstract

In 1802, a league of as‐yet largely undistinguished gentleman created the Edinburgh Review . Instantly successful in attracting attention and ultimately triumphant in reshaping public discourse across a range of literary and political issues for a middle‐class populous, the Edinburgh returned the compliment, by transforming this set of men into some of the most well known, influential, and extraordinary in Romantic‐era Great Britain. While contributors over the first 20 years of the Edinburgh's existence included Walter Scott, William Hazlitt, Robert Malthus, and (albeit only for one article), Samuel Taylor Coleridge, its progenitors – Sydney Smith, Francis Jeffrey, Francis Horner, and Henry Brougham – exemplified and magnified the journal's Whig agenda and literary programme. Despite the official anonymity of the journal – only the Edinburgh publisher Archibald Constable and London distributor Thomas Longman were announced on the title pages – the public quickly became aware of the primary authors and editors of the journal. (In a comic exchange, Hazlitt, who wrote that being an Edinburgh reviewer was the highest rank of literary society, was told by Jeffrey that the latter could not vouch for him as an Edinburgh author because of the policy of anonymity, and, in the same letter, was reminded by Jeffrey of the due date for an article.)