The English literary magazine originates in the eighteenth century. The first periodical to call itself a “magazine,” the Gentleman’s Magazine, commenced publication in 1731, and was quickly followed by the London Magazine and many other competitors. Indeed, no fewer than three monthly periodicals with the exact title of the Literary Magazine enjoyed runs of two to six years before 1800. From the very beginning, moreover, these and many other magazines concerned themselves with matters that modern readers will recognize as literary: they printed poetry and fiction, criticism of poetry and drama, lists of publications, book reviews, and biographical articles about authors (Graham 1930; Fennimore 1989; Keymer 1998).

Jacob Sider Jost is a professor of English at Dickinson College.

For more information on the published version, visit Routledge's Website. https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Companion-to-the-British-and-North-American-Literary-Magazine/Lanzendorfer/p/book/9780367222819#

Sider Jost, Jacob. Eighteenth-Century British Literary Magazines. In The Routledge Companion to the British and North American Literary Magazine, edited by Tim Lanzendörfer, 135-142. NY: Routledge, 2022.

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