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References (23)
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Unlike the Athenian Mercury, readers did not have to pay for this periodical, which may thus have had a wider circulation -
M. Hunt (1984)
Hawkers, Bawlers and Mercuries: Women and the London Press in the Early EnlightenmentWomen and History, 3
-
Jeake's questions about the nature of the earth's motion were answered in A~10 -
M. Starkman (1950)
Swift's satire on learning in A tale of a tub -
J. Houghton (1969)
A collection, for improvement of husbandry and trade -
Jonathan Swift to the Athenian Society, letter dated 'Moor-Park, Feb. 14, 1691/2'. The letter and Odewere published in the Athenian Gazette, supplement to -
The History of the Athenian Society, for the Resolving all Nice and Curious Questions lJy a Gentleman who Got Secret Intelligence of the Whole Proceedings (1692 -
Poor Robin's Intelligence -
Sale 'by the Candle' denoted a common form of auctioning by which the goods were sold to the last person to bid before a candle burnt below a marked point -
(1926)
The Beginnings of the English Literary Periodical. A Study of Periodical Literature -
R. Dennis (1990)
The English urban renaissance: Culture and society in the provincial town 1660–1770: Peter Borsay, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. Pp. xxii + 416. £37.50) -
S. Pincus (1995)
"Coffee Politicians Does Create": Coffeehouses and Restoration Political CultureThe Journal of Modern History, 67
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Consumer Behaviour, passim -
Among his most infamous publications was the Second Spira, a popular pamphlet about an atheist who was struck dead for blasphemy. For details of Sault's life and career, see 'Richard Sault -
(1995)
The English Urban Renaissance. Culture and Society in the Provincial Town, 16601770 (Oxford, 1989); Stephen Pincus, 'Coffee Politicians Does Create': Coffee Houses and Restoration Politicial Culture -
Original letters to the Tatler and Spectator are in the British Library -
Larry Stewart (1992)
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(1998)
Margaret Hunt gives the example of the hawker Ann Dodd, who took in over a quarter of the 10,000 copies of the London Journal in 1721 -
Mr Switerda' a tutor in English, Latin and French, who advertised· regularly in the periodical over a number of years. See for example Ibid -
Aytoun Ellis (1956)
The penny universities : a history of the coffee-houses -
H. Steeves (1912)
The Athenian Virtuosi" and "The Athenian SocietyModern Language Review, 7
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(1989)
The Structural Transformation of the Bourgeois Public Sphere. An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans -
Life and Errors
- Publisher
- Taylor & Francis
- Copyright
- © 2000 Maney Publishing
- ISSN
- 1749-6322
- eISSN
- 0305-8034
- DOI
- 10.1179/ldn.2000.25.1.14
- Publisher site
- See Article on Publisher Site
Abstract
AbstractThe influential work of Jürgen Habermas has elicited a growing interest in the function of coffee houses in the construction of a 'bourgeois public sphere' in eighteenth-century England. Much remains to be discovered, however, about the nature and influence of coffee houses and their popular literary output. This survey examines the relationship between an early coffee house periodical, John Dunton's Athenian Mercury (1691-1697), and its readers. It uses textual evidence and a range of contextual information to test the accuracy of a contemporary engraving, the 'Emblem of the Athenian Society' (1692), which depicts the periodical's authors receiving letters from a socially diverse group of readers. This paper argues that the 'Emblem' was largely accurate, and that the Athenian Mercury's core readership was among men and women of the middling sort. The influence of Dunton's periodicals, it is argued, extended far beyond the coffee houses into wider metropolitan society and the provinces. The encouragement that the Athenian Mercury lent to the education of the middling sort was the key to its popularity, and contributed to the rise of an increasingly 'democratic' public sphere.
Journal
The London Journal: A Review of Metropolitan Society Past and Present – Taylor & Francis
Published: May 1, 2000