EIGHTEENTH CENTURY JOURNALS
from the Hope Collection at the Bodleian Library, Oxford

Including The Actor; Anti-Theatre; The Bee Reviv’d; The Covent Garden Chronicle; The Eaton Chronicle; The Free Briton; The Microcosm; Pig’s Meat; The Rhapsodist; The Spy at Oxford & Cambridge; Town Talk, The Tribune; The Watchman, The World and 62 other titles

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

This new project brings together 76 rare journals printed between 1714 and 1799 illuminating all aspects of eighteenth century social, political and literary life. Many are ephemeral, lasting only for a handful of issues, others run for several years.

Editors and authors include Joseph Addison, Thomas Brereton, Gilbert Burnet, Thomas Chatterton, the Earl of Chesterfield, Samuel Coleridge, George Colman, Thomas Cooke, Henry Fielding, Thomas Gordon, Jeremy Hellfire, Tom Paine, Ambrose Phillips, Henry James Pye, Humphrey Repton, Thomas Sheridan, John Slade, Richard Steele, George Steevens, Henry Stephens, Gilbert Stuart, John Thelwall, Philip Thickness, William Thompson, Horace Walpole, Richard West, William Whitehead and John Wilkes, but there are also a whole host of unidentified authors whose contributions are equally valuable for the scholar.

Topics discussed include law and policing, female dress, British colonial possessions, marriage, morality, the South Sea Bubble, theatre, opera, Alexander Pope, religion, the Reverend George Whitefield's preaching of the Gospel in America, the '45 Rebellion and Culloden, the American Revolution, the Irish Rebellion, the trial of Lord Gordon, the French Revolution, Radicalism, Natural Liberty, the Blue Stockings, education, literature and the Act of Union.

There are polemics, poetry, letters to the press, reviews of drama and novels, contemporary adverts and essays on almost every conceivable topic.

In his introduction, Professor Black has commented on the importance of the minor and little known journals which rub shoulders with those that are well known. This is also true for literature. While it wonderful to have titles such as The London Mercury with poems by Chatterton and The Watchman, with many long poems by Coleridge, it is equally valuable to see the work of lesser known poets writing on similar topics. Reviews of literature are also very revealing and help us to understand the way in which authors were perceived in their own age. There is much evidence concerning the rise of the novel in this period and of changes in the style and content of poetry.

No less than 19 titles deal with eighteenth century drama. Particularly noteworthy titles are The Theatre and The Anti-Theatre of 1720, The Comedian of 1732, The Rhapsodist of 1757, The Theatrical Monitor of 1767, The Covent Garden Chronicle of 1768, and The Prompter and The Actor of 1789. There are notices of new plays and reviews of performances by Garrick, Siddons, Kemble and others. There are also discussions of censorship, styles of acting, and the role of the Theatre Manager.

The benefit of this project is that it offers students and scholars a manageable resource with which to examine a whole range of questions relating to the eighteenth century. It also offers a wide variety of perspectives (for, against and undecided) on the debates of the day, from the presentation of drama, to the relative merits of King and Liberty.

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