The Tatler, a periodical edited by Richard Steele, appeared thrice weekly from 12 April 1709 to 2 January 1711: a total of 271 issues. Published in London by John Morphew and printed by John Nutt, it took the form of a single folio half-sheet, printed in double columns, containing between 1,000 and 3,000 words of text, including advertisements, and costing 1d. A collected edition was published in 1710–11, under the title The Lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq..

The Tatler appeared pseudonymously, but some contemporaries quickly identified the periodical as Steele’s. The authorship of most of the individual Tatler numbers remains unknown, but Joseph Addison appears to have been Steele’s onl

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Published 05 November 2004

Citation: Italia, Iona. "The Tatler". The Literary Encyclopedia. 5 November 2004.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7889, accessed 9 February 2010.]