Edinburgh Review, The

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

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The Edinburgh Review

, founded in 1802, helped to transform the practice of reviewing in Britain. From its inception, the

Edinburgh

offered substantial essays on works being reviewed, often incorporating general reflections on the author or subject in question. Such leisurely analyses contrasted sharply with the more usual practice of the established reviews of the day, which tended to notice a larger number and wider range of books, generally in brief articles padded with substantial quotations.

The Edinburgh Review

, in contrast, set out with a decidedly less populist agenda; its goal, as it explained in its first number, was to identify and pay serious attention only to works that it considered to be of solid intellectual interest. It succeeded in making itself a cultural arbiter, and…

1520 words

Citation: Perkins, Pam. "Edinburgh Review, The". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 January 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=311, accessed 19 March 2024.]

311 Edinburgh Review, The 2 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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