Category:Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine
From Victorian Literature
Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine
Editor: Alexander Blackwood
Publisher: William Blackwood and Sons, 45 George Street, Edinburgh; and T. Cadell, Strand, London. Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Edinburgh
Overview: The purpose of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine is described in a note to the first volume: the editors wished “. . . to render this work a Repository of whatever may be supposed to be the most interesting to general readers.” However, Blackwood’s would become a central mouthpiece for the Scottish Tory party. Established in April of 1817 by William Blackwood, this monthly journal was also called Maga. As it gained popularity, the journal published works by many notable writers, including essays by Thomas de Quincey, poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and serialized novels by George Eliot, Anthony Trollope, Margaret Oliphant, and, later, Joseph Conrad. The first issues of Blackwood’s were divided into sections which reveal the journal’s character. “Original Communications” printed letters, short fiction, or narrative poems. “Antiquarian Repertory” had scholarly inquiries or translations from other languages. Other sections were for “Original Poetry,” “Review of New Publications,” and “Periodical Works,” wherein articles often critiqued the Whig-supporting Edinburgh Review or the Tory-supporting Quarterly Review. In the “Literary and Scientific Intelligence” section, advances in the scientific community were noted, and in the “Monthly Register,” news and statistics were reported. William Blackwood was the journal’s first primary editor, and one of its best-known contributors was John Wilson, who wrote under the pseudonym of Christopher North. The editorship stayed in the Blackwood family until the journal’s discontinuance in 1980.
Submitted by: Carter, Sari: section 1, Fall 2007
