For a side-project, I’ve spent some time reading articles on scientific issues in Edinburgh Review (mid-19th century) and am delighted about the magazine’s format: long and informative articles by knowledgeable people - the discussion about Humboldt’s Kosmos I’ve just read was written by John Herschel, published in January 1848 - on topics that come as often from science as from the arts, history, and politics.
The founders’
aim was to select only a few outstanding books in all fields of interest and to examine them with more care than had been customary in previous reviewing. ‘Refusing to confine itself to … the mere literary merits of the works that came before it, [the Edinburgh] professed to go deeply into the Principles on which its judgments were to be rested; as well as to take large and Original views of all the important questions to which these works might relate’
the Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals 1824-1900 writes (vol 1, 416 - the quote-within-the-quote is from the first volume of the journal), before noting the journal’s interest in new economics, practical things, political enlightenment and social reform; the “new journal launched a reasoned attack on the manifold problems presented by changing economic conditions” (417).
The Edinburgh Review’s format is really something special, and it is a joy to browse through it.
