Martin's Magazine: The General Magazine of Arts and Sciences, 1755–65

(Re‐)Packaging Knowledge and The Business of Format: Benjamin Martin's The General Magazine of Arts and Sciences (1755–64)

“…118 In any case, no status as 'part' is allocated to biography on its first entry, yet 'bonus', as Millburn suggests, seems a little too indifferent an assessment even though no more than 28 pages of life writing were achieved in the first year, covering Thales, Anaxagoras, and Plato. 119 While the lives of philosophers are not integrated into the surveys of sciences but feature as additional matter, once the monthly numbers were rearranged into topical volumes, volume 13 was reserved solely for biography, covering lives from antiquity into the eighteenth century in chronological order. 120 By 1760, Martin certainly boasted that this volume titled Biographia Philosophica (1764) was to be a 'Work of Novelty'.…”

“…The latter ultimately comprised fourteen volumes displaying no trace of seriality. (Given that some interim volumes survived and individual bindings vary to some extent, 56 the result is a bewildering bibliographical legacy leaving librarians and scholars baffled until today. 57 ) Martin's hybrid strategy of transmitting knowledge thus on the one hand encompasses the seriality of the magazine with its 'dual logic' of 'compiling and collecting according to principled organization' and 'unruly mixture of heterogeneous components'.…”

“…45 Sandwiched between the easygoing final Miscellaneous part and the very first proper thematic 'branch' headed 'The Young GENTLEMEN's and LADIES PHILOSOPHY; or a particular and Accurate SURVEY of the WORKS of NATURE, by Way of DIALOGUE' (I) were 'The NATURAL HISTORY of the WORLD' (II), ' A compleat SYSTEM of the PHILOLOGICAL SCIENCES' (III), and ' A BODY of MATHEMATICAL INSTITUTES, or PRINCIPLES of SCIENCE' (IV). 46 These three parts came closer to a straightforward series of consecutive lessons or textbook chapters on their respective subjects than parts I and V (and as such, will not be explored in this essay).…”