24 - Periodicals and the trade, 1695–1780

Summary

Introduction

Distinguishing between eighteenth-century ‘newspapers’ and ‘periodicals’ has been a thorny problem for modern scholars. Unlike modern newspapers, magazines and journals, whose physical appearance easily distinguishes them, many eighteenth-century newspapers and periodicals were published on the same size sheets and the same cheap paper. A further complication arises from the tendency of eighteenth-century publishers to experiment with format and subject matter, hoping to hit upon the happy formula to sustain a regular readership. Ultimately, the only reliable rule of thumb for differentiating them derives from the nature of their predominant content (though, of course, there was some overlap). Newspapers primarily comprised ephemeral material, today’s news being superseded by tomorrow’s news; periodicals, on the other hand, were principally composed of more enduring content – essays, poetry, biographies, literary criticism, book and drama reviews, etc. The clearest evidence that eighteenth-century readers made similar assumptions derives from the practice of contemporary publishers, who collected, bound and offered for sale copies of past periodical issues on an annual or semi-annual basis; the fate of newspapers, however, depended upon the industry of private collectors like Charles Burney.