The review essay emerged in the seventeenth century and entered the publishing mainstream in the middle of the eighteenth, when Ralph Griffiths founded his Monthly Review, the first journal devoted entirely to book reviewing. But it was The Edinburgh Review that electrified the publishing world and put the review essay at the centre of British cultural and political life. Established in 1802, and edited by Francis Jeffrey, the Edinburgh exuded confidence, bristled with vitriol, celebrated Whiggism, and condemned injustice. Seven years later, Tories fought back with the founding of The Quarterly Review, edited by William Gifford, which set itself in opposition to the Edinburgh on all the major issues of the day. Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine was a more agile and belligerent Tory alternative to the Quarterly, but it gradually grew more moderate and in the 1830s was eclipsed by its most raucous imitator, Fraser’s Magazine.

This chapter addresses the question: How did the term become familiar in society? Even the earliest uses demonstrate the integration of knowledge classification and engagement with large audiences. Derived from German usage, the term ‘applied sciences’ was coined early in the nineteenth century by the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It was key to underpinning a major new encyclopaedia project intended to structure knowledge and thinking. A succession of loyal editors realised his vision as the massive Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, advertised using Coleridge’s coinage. It would also be taken up by King’s College London seeking to describe its course teaching knowledge underlying engineering without claiming to be technical training. Meanwhile, the chemist J. F. W. Johnston used the term to promote the services he offered farmers. During and after debates over Corn Law Repeal, the press discussed Johnston’s applied science as a potential saviour of agriculture. The term’s use then snowballed.