The periodical essayists of the eighteenth century. With illustrative extracts from the rarer periodiclas

About this book

George Simpson Marr’s literary history follows the eighteenth-century periodical essay through prominent writers and lesser-known publications, using extracts to show how the form developed. Although the Tory Examiner took on Steele’s Tatler in the political arena, Marr judges its literary record less substantial and gives Swift’s involvement particular attention. In a letter associated with the Spendthrift, John Hawkesworth asks a publisher to leave his essay on taste unchanged, showing an author negotiating how his work would appear in print. Johnson’s prose receives a balanced assessment: Marr acknowledges its learned stiffness while defending the measured force of his strongest sentences.