Review: "Early English periodicals and early modern social media" by Margaret J.M. Ezell

Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

The Scriblerian and the Kit-Cats

Publication Date

11-1-2025

Abstract

This recent title in the Cambridge Elements series suggestively demonstrates both the benefits and limitations of this new, extremely condensed form of critical study. Ezell’s slim, ninety-two-page book on the late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century periodical and the “dynamic, participatory culture” it created (so similar, in many ways, to the commercially driven social media of today) is a quick, easily digestible, informative read, extremely useful in the classroom for the panoramic view it gives on an important literary genre. However, it is also a very abbreviated argument, at times lacking sufficient illustrative examples or a more in-depth, content-based analysis of some of the most important periodicals of the time (The Tatler, The Spectator, The Rambler). Other periodicals and newspapers that played a transformative role in the literary marketplace, such as John “Orator” Henley’s the Hyp-Doctor, are also omitted. As the length limitations are extrinsic to the work, I focus here on the merits of this study, as there are quite a few.The author’s reading of early English periodicals as early modern social media forms is insightful, fresh, and well-articulated throughout. The parallels Ezell draws between participatory culture in the age of social media and the relationship between authors and the reading public (as content creators themselves) during early modernity shed exciting new light on our reading habits, expectations, and content engagement today. In the first chapter, the author sets the scene by providing compelling evidence of the role this literary form played in the public sphere: between 1641 and 1700, one-quarter of all publications in Britain were periodicals, competing with each other for a reading public and, in the process, experimenting with a medley of formulas meant to win over their audiences (news, entertainment, gossip, poems, musical scores, social commentary). Evolving from the late seventeenth-century proclamations, ballads, and pamphlets featuring “strange and terrible news,” the eighteenth-century periodical essay peaked in the writings of Addison, Steele, and Johnson, following what Ezell describes as an arduous and highly experiential process. Now forgotten individuals, such as Marchamond Needham and John Raymond, who mixed news with entertainment in their popular newsbooks, Joad Raymond, who ingeniously featured news in verse in his Mercurious Melancholicus, and Henry Muddiman and Joseph Williamson, who oversaw the production of handwritten newsletters to create “an aura of exclusivity and social connection between the reader and the imagined ‘author,’” are all important figures in the history of the periodical essay.Focusing in chapter 2 on the “sociable periodicals” of the 1690–1700, such as The Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions, John Dunton’s The Athenian Mercury, and Peter Motteux’s The Gentleman’s Journal, Ezell highlights their seriality, topicality, and entertaining content. John Dunton, in particular, developed a highly successful “question-answer” formula that engaged a readership who was inclusive in terms of gender and social class and willing to send questions by mail through the newly established Penny Post. The Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions attracted readers through a medley of topics of more or less scientific interest (such as whale fishing in the West Indies, or the birth of “an odd, Monstruous Calf”), while The Gentleman’s Journal published mainly poetry, songs, and translations (Motteaux himself was the translator of Cervantes and Rabelais), creating a community of readers by welcoming response pieces and literary games.Chapter 3 focuses on the next two decades (1700–1720), when periodicals like Aaron Hill’s The British Apollo and Daniel Defoe’s The Review experimented with new types of content presentation and marketing strategies. They deliberately engaged with competing publications (such as The Female Tatler), answered questions from readers, commented on topical issues, disseminated news, and invited advertisements. This section is particularly memorable as Ezell includes suggestive examples of queries sent by readers (such as the insoluble question, “What is Happiness?”). The chapter ends with an apt analysis of Defoe’s The Review and its successful creation of a participatory space for readers, a subscribing audience, and a fictional responder as a voice of moral authority (“Mr. Review”). This fictional character acted as a sort of “celebrity” figure, being emulated later by Addison and Steele in Isaac Bickerstaff’s character.In the fourth chapter, Ezell focuses on The Tatler, The Spectator, and some of their rivals, most notably The Female Tatler. The Tatler’s 330 issues in its two-year life and The Spectator’s 635 issues in its mere three years of existence tell only part of the story. As Ezell explains, the popularity of these periodicals was so high that the Tatler had to “bring in a second printing house to satisfy demand, and the Spectator from its start required an ever-increasing number of distribution outlets.” The reasons why these periodicals reached canonical status are varied: both aimed at creating a community of readers, encouraged them to generate new content, offered an attractive group of characters from all social strata, and nurtured a special relationship between readers and the writers behind the narrators (or “eidolons”). They also successfully employed the serial form, delivered high-quality content, and capitalized on the celebrity status of their authors, who developed a large and loyal fan base. Just as in the case of Pope’s and Swift’s works, Tonson’s publishing (and republishing) of these periodicals in book form, with beautiful illustrations by Frances Hayman in the 1753 edition, turned out to be one of “the greatest publishing sensations of the eighteenth century” (Hazel Wilkinson, qtd. in Ezell) and significantly contributed to their elevation to canonical status.Ezell’s book concludes with a chapter on Eliza Haywood’s The Female Spectator and Samuel Johnson’s The Rambler. In her view, the 1740–1750 decade shows a marked change in the reading taste: while both periodicals “achieved their success by inhabiting the form of the earlier journals, the eidolon and letter format,” they rejected the “reliance on amateur reader-authors for content” that the previous periodicals displayed. Haywood replaced the readers’ community of correspondence with “spies,” encouraged her female readers to pursue education and moral improvement, and advised them to display “refined Taste” at all times. Johnson’s 208 Ramblers, on the other hand, were less interactive (although 65 of them were written in epistolary form, most of these letters were authored by Johnson himself), were manifestly “moral” in their message, and were indifferent to “temporal curiosity” and “the topick of the day.” As Ezell succinctly puts it, “the contents of the Rambler are the iteration of Samuel Johnson’s views, illustrations of his philosophy only,” and the readers read them because of their interest in Johnson himself, or what Helen Deutsch suggestively called “author love.” Here, Ezell identifies a shift in interest from the participatory culture of the periodical essay to the voice of moral authority of the literary essay.This book is written with intelligence and gusto. However, while the book’s architecture is solid and the writing compelling, I felt, at times, that the supporting evidence was lacking and the sections on the major periodicals read more like sententiae than arguments. It may be that, like the history of the periodical essays themselves, these abbreviated “Elements” need time to become a successful formula for a reader used to substantive, well-defended, exhaustive analyses of the material at hand. This book will serve, nevertheless, as an invaluable resource for our students, who are much less prone to engaging with lengthy critical explications than we are.

ISSN

0190-731X

Publisher

The Pennsylvania State University Press

Volume

58

Issue

1

First Page

53

Last Page

56

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities

Indexed in Scopus

no

Open Access

no

Link to Full Text

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