Early History of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine

								



EARLY HISTORY OF BLACKWOOD’S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE


BY


ALICE MARY DOANE
A. B. Earlham College, 1914


THESIS


Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the


Degree of


MASTER OF ARTS


IN ENGLISH


IN


THE GRADUATE SCHOOL


OF THE


UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS


1917

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL

  June 1 1917


I HEREBY RECOMMEND THAT THE THESIS PREPARED UNDER MY SUPERVISION
BY Mary Alice Doane
ENTITLED Early History of Blackwood’s Magazine


------------------------------------------------------
BE ACCEPTED AS FULFILLING THIS PART OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE
DEGREE OF Master of Arts in English


Jacob Zeitlin
In Charge of Thesis


Frank W Scott
Head of Department


Recommendation concurred in:[1]


--------------------  }  Committee
--------------------  }  on
--------------------  }  Final Examination[1]


[1] Required for doctor’s degree but not for master’s.

  Contents

    I. Introduction               p. 1-15



   II. Genesis                    p. 16-29


III. Dramatis Personae          p. 30-36



   IV. First Years of “Maga”      p. 37-67



       Bibliography               p. 68-69

EARLY HISTORY OF BLACKWOOD’S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE

I
Introduction[2]
[2] The information in this chapter is taken from the following: Oliver
Elton: A Survey of English Literature, 1780-1830 (Arnold, London,
1912) V. i, ch. 13
Cambridge History of English Literature (Cambridge, 1916) V. xii, ch.
6
John Gibson Lockhart: Peter’s Letters to His Kinsfolk (Edinburgh,
1819) V. i, ii

People love to be shocked! That explains the present circulation of
Life. It explains, too, the clamor with which Edinburgh received
the October number of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine in 1817. For
the first time in periodical history, the reading public was actually
thrilled and completely shocked! Edinburgh held up its hands in
horror, looked pious, wagged its head--and bought up every number! It
is a strange parallel, perhaps, Life and Blackwood’s,--yet not so
strange. It is hard at first glance to understand how those yellow,
musty old pages could have been so shocking which now seem to have
lost all savor for the man in the street. But before we can appreciate
just how shocking Blackwood’s Magazine was, or why, it will be
necessary first to remember the Edinburgh of those days, and the men
who thought and fought in those pages, and the then state of periodical
literature.
When we call Blackwood’s the first real magazine it is by virtue
of worth, not fact. There were numerous periodicals preceding and
contemporary with it. Most of them have never been heard of by the
average citizen, and no doubt oblivion is the kindest shroud to fold
them in. The Monthly Review, founded in 1749, was the oldest. It
ran till 1845 and is remembered chiefly for the fact that it had