The publication, distribution, and reception of the 'Edinburgh Review' in America, 1802--1830 (Scotland)

The publication, distribution, and reception of nineteenth-century British literary magazines in the United States remains a largely unexplored area of book history. This paper traces the history of the Edinburgh Review from its first publication in Britain in 1802, to its republication, distribution, and reception in the United States during the first three decades of the nineteenth century. A survey of American book catalogs reveals that Americans had access through circulating libraries to a wide range of late-eighteenth century and early nineteenth-century British periodicals. Moreover, ties between Scotland and American were strong, and college-educated Americans in particular were familiar with Scottish Enlightenment thought by the time the Edinburgh arrived in the United States in 1803. The Edinburgh served to further develop the transatlantic republic of letters, to connect Americans to British and European literary culture, and to enable Americans to participate in the public sphere, where issues such as the Napoleonic Wars were being debated. Robert Walsh and Thomas Jefferson are examples of two Americans who, though they held politically divergent views, nevertheless were both devoted readers of the Edinburgh Review. The journals and letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, a member of a later generation of American readers of the Edinburgh, reveal the extent of his review reading in his early manhood and importance of what he read there to his development as a writer. The Edinburgh Review brought Americans into the transatlantic public sphere and enabled them to participate in literary culture and in the great political debates of the early nineteenth century.