The Invention of News: How the World Came to Know About Itself

by Andrew Pettegree

  The development of a serious scholarly press added depth and weight to the periodical press pioneered by the newspapers. The serial model proved a highly effective mechanism for spreading the risk of encyclopaedic publications, improving cash flow and allowing the market to dictate the size of an edition. Publishers were not faced, as they were in the case of conventionally published books, with the prospects of warehouses full of unsold copies. The new periodicals also progressively broadened the market for professional research in a wide variety of fields, based on serious investigation backed by empirical data. This inevitably had its impact on the reporting of current affairs, encouraging both a turn towards analysis and an increasingly sceptical approach to tales and wonders that fell outside the range of explicable phenomena. It is in precisely this period that we witness a retreat, particularly in the metropolitan press, from the reporting of bizarre or supernatural events (unless they could be used to expose the credulity of country folk).7

  The market for science also proved remarkably broad. This was demonstrated when in 1691 John Dunton, an experienced London bookseller and publisher, embarked on one of the most innovative serial publications of this restless age. The Athenian Mercury was a periodical entirely devoted to readers’ questions, in all fields: science, religion, manners, courtship and history.8 Readers sent their questions by penny post to Mr Smith's coffee house adjacent to Dunton's shop in the Stocks Market. The questions were answered by the Athenian Society, in essence Dunton and his two brothers-in-law. Correspondents were never identified, which allowed them to ask their questions without worrying about exposing their ignorance. It proved to be a winning formula. The Athenian Mercury was sold twice weekly for a penny, and Dunton and his fellow Athenians were inundated with questions. The editor was obliged to warn readers that they would not answer the same question twice, which of course obliged enthusiasts to collect back numbers to have access to the full range of the wisdom on offer.

  The Athenian Mercury demonstrated to the English public, probably to their great surprise, that science was one of their greatest interests.9 Science, broadly defined, provided 20 per cent of the questions. This was very different from the science of the Philosophical Transactions, but on the other hand it was also a far cry from the news-books and their monstrous births. Readers wanted to know the answers to simple, practical things and phenomena that they observed in the course of their everyday lives. Why is the water in the Baths hotter than in either springs or rivers? Whence the wind has its force, and the reason for its changes; where extinguished fire goes.10 All good questions.

  Dunton closed the Athenian Mercury in 1697. The resumption of political journalism with the lapsing of the Licensing Act of 1695 had extended the range of serials available, and sales of his periodical were falling. But it is likely Dunton felt the venture had run its course. When a periodical depended so wholly on the personality and charisma of one individual, the pressure of weekly or bi-weekly publication was relentless; perhaps both Dunton and his readers were ready to move on. The Athenian Mercury nevertheless made a critical contribution to the development of the periodical genre. Beyond the inventive format of the interactive dialogue with readers, Dunton had also struck gold with his college of sages who delivered the responses. By creating this club, of which readers enjoyed a vicarious membership, Dunton had developed a conceit that found a lasting resonance both with readers and with the authors of future serials.11 Invited for their penny subscription to join a society of erudite and witty companions, readers could be drawn into a regular web of relationships that became a virtual neighbourhood, or a substitute for their family circle. This had a particular appeal for new city dwellers often disconnected from home, and open to new associations and new experiences. Here Dunton had planted a seed that would germinate in one of the most creative phases of English letters.

  Mr Spectator

  In 1672 another Mercury appeared in France, a journal that over the course of years would soar far above the high-minded Journal des sçavans. This was the Mercure galant and, as its name suggests, it had in mind a rather different set of readers. The Mercure galant offered a vivid miscellany of topical cultural and literary news. Court gossip was mixed with a hodge-podge of verses, melodies, literary reviews, obituaries, marriage and birth announcements. Its first editor, Jean Donneau de Visé, can be regarded as the founder of the society journal.12

  The Mercure galant was not above a certain high-mindedness. De Visé was a serious man, and a critic of the comedies of Molière. The Mercure galant was also, as was the way in France, protected by a royal monopoly, and de Visé enjoyed a handsome royal pension. So naturally the Mercure galant remained friendly to the court. The frequent articles flattering Louis XIV and lauding his conquests were not easily distinguishable from similar effusions in the Gazette. The Mercure galant would never be a tool of satire; its real influence was in showing the way to a new genre of periodical, the journal of society and manners. It was the signature creation of the eighteenth-century press.

  13.2 The Athenian Society. Dunton's brains' trust in fact consisted of himself and his two brothers-in-law.

  It took some time before the English press found a response to the success of the Mercure galant. Various review papers came and went; some were too high-minded, some, like Pierre Antoine Motteux's monthly Gentleman's Journal, too infrequent to catch the febrile temper of the times. But the Gentleman's Journal, with its rich miscellany of news, culture and entertainment, pointed the way towards a form of publication that offered the man of refinement a fresh window on contemporary affairs. If this could be mixed with wit and irony the result would be the talk of the town. So it was when in 1709 Richard Steele launched The Tatler, a thrice-weekly miscellany printed on both sides of a single folio half sheet.13 Steele was already an experienced news man. Since 1707 he had been the editor of the Gazette, a lucrative but to Steele dull assignment.14 In contrast to the ponderous detached tone of the Gazette, The Tatler would be witty and personal. As Steele conceived it, the journal would offer a mix of news from home and abroad, comment on new books and plays, gossip and commentary on contemporary affairs. It would also include original fiction and poetry (always reliable fillers for publications facing stiff deadlines).

  The Tatler took a little time to find its feet. Within a few months it had dropped its news reporting; this never fitted well with the facetious tone of the rest of the contents, and The Tatler was always likely, in any case, to be an additional purchase for regular readers of newspapers. The change of emphasis also reflected the influence of Joseph Addison, who joined Steele as a partner shortly after The Tatler’s launch. Under Addison The Tatler became less of a miscellany and more of an essay paper, each number offering an extended reflection on a single subject. The Tatler also vigorously pursued and gave a great deal of space to advertising: as many as 14 or 18 advertisements an issue, up to 150 a month. These promoted wigs, wheelchairs, birdcages, lotteries, cosmetics and medicines. As well as bringing in valuable revenue they held up a mirror to the changing taste of London society. Readers could look to them for tips on correct deportment as well as bargains.15

  In 1711, after just two years and 271 issues, Addison and Steele closed The Tatler; it would live on in book form, in collected editions. Two months later they launched The Spectator.16 This, it proved, was their true masterpiece. Advertised as the ‘sober reflections of a detached observer’, Mr Spectator was never quite that; rather a wry, sometimes caustic and always penetrating observer of the foibles and peculiarities of London life. The enterprise was driven by the sheer brilliance of the writing. Addison and Steele ostensibly eschewed coverage of the news, but the distinction was always more rhetorical than real. The Tatler included essays on the lottery and duelling, and The Spectator on the Bank of England, the social status of credit and the moral value of money. Was an essay on duelling addressing a social issue or writing a comedy of manners? With Steele it is hard to say. But the proclaimed bar on politics did at
least give the authors licence for merciless satire of the coffee-house culture and the rage for news, never more comical than when pursued by a humourless upstart tradesman. An upholsterer, for instance:

  13.3 The Tatler and The Spectator.

  I found him to be the greatest newsmonger in our quarter; that he rose before day to read the Post Man, and that he would take two or three turns to the other end of the town before his neighbours were up, to see if there were any Dutch mails come in. He had a wife and several children, but was much more inquisitive to know what passes in Poland than in his own family …. He looked extremely thin in a dearth of news, and never enjoyed himself in a westerly wind. [That is, when contrary winds prevented news bulletins crossing the English Channel.] This indefatigable kind of life was the ruin of his shop.

  This man and his affairs had been long out of my mind, till about three days ago, as I was walking in St James's Park, I heard somebody at a distance hemming after me: and who should it be but my old neighbour the upholsterer? I saw he was reduced to extreme poverty, by certain shabby superfluities in his dress …. But pray, says he, tell me sincerely what are your thoughts of the King of Sweden? For though his wife and children were starving, I found his chief concern at present was for this great monarch.17

  This, by Addison, was presented as the reflections of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., the fictional persona of The Tatler. It was a device that allowed the authors great licence. The views expressed were never quite those of Addison or Steele; the uncomfortable and sometimes quite cruel satire of aspirant tradesmen and empty-headed fops was placed in the mouth of a third party. Mr Spectator could advance prescriptions for the reform of taste, the theatre or the Bank of England without pausing to reflect whether they made much sense; all was in the service of wit and raillery. The tone was very different from the impassioned advocacy of Defoe's Review, but perhaps no less effective for that. And for all Mr Spectator's denial of serious political intent, this was a Whig paper, deeply rooted in the salons and coffee houses of that political interest. When Jonathan Swift was enrolled to write for The Examiner in 1710, this was specifically intended to provide a Tory counter-weight to the prevailing Whig tone of the leading essay periodicals.18

  Just as they had with The Tatler, Steele and Addison closed The Spectator after only two years. This was not because the paper had lost its way; rather, the pressures of production had become too great. Many of the most successful topical periodicals were remarkably short-lived: the ten years of Defoe's Review proved an exceptional run. Their fate reveals the weakness of a periodical dependent on a single source of inspiration. However gifted the writer, the pressure of writing regularly with passion and wit, on a sufficient variety of subjects to keep the readership entertained, would eventually tell. Periodicals folded – not because their audience fell away, but because their creators became exhausted.

  The long-term future required the development of a production model that depended less on a single creative genius. In England the way forward was indicated by Edward Cave's Gentleman's Magazine (1731).19 This preserved the miscellaneous content but abandoned the highly personalised identity of the essay periodical. Begun as a digest of other topical publications, it gradually evolved into an independent periodical with original content, written by professional writers hired for the task. This was a model of collective production that the newspaper press was not yet ready to follow.

  For the moment it was Mr Spectator who captured the imagination. The Spectator epitomised the qualities that had made the essay paper so intoxicating: the invitation to take a walk through the city's crowded streets in the company of a witty and urbane guide, a worldly and cultured man with access to the smartest salons and the most advanced literary circles. The Spectator found many imitators in England and abroad. The new ventures that attempted to fill the void in the London press left by its closure mostly failed; there was no substitute for its original authors, who had now moved on to other literary pursuits. But abroad the ‘Spectators’ flourished. In the Netherlands Spectatorial publications helped revive a periodical trade constrained by the urban magistrates’ determination to limit their city to one regular paper. There was no such restriction on the essay papers, and readers would often take several.20 In France one can enumerate as many as one hundred such journals established between 1720 and 1789.21 French readers took to their mix of literary criticism, wit, and advice on matters of taste. The Spectators were familiar and accessible; they offered for the first time in the French periodical press direct dialogue with the public. They represented all that had been lacking in journalism until this point in the highly controlled and reverential French market; the effect was like a jolt of electricity through French literary culture and the book trade. Naturally, such a transformation was not without its critics. The sheer frivolity of some of the periodicals irritated the more high-minded readership, but the publishers were unapologetic. After all, as one editor put it,

  Should one write only for savants, or for those who want to become learned? There is something between total ignorance and profound erudition. The multitude is incapable of studying and learning, so brochures and periodicals are necessary for our century.22

  The earliest French Spectators by and large preserved the cautious tradition of anonymity, but gradually adopted a more robust authorial identity. Between 1720 and 1739 writers like Marivaux, d'Argens, the Abbé Prévost and critics like Desfontaines, La Varenne and La Barre de Beaumarchais all established their own personal vehicles.23 Some of these maintained a more serious tone, but across the whole spectrum cultural reviews made up three-quarters of the periodical literature, particularly in the more restrictive political environment of the earlier half of the century. From all of this, there was money to be made; after 1730 all major French publishers had journals on their list. The trade in periodicals provided a substitute for the saucy fiction and ‘philosophical’ works forbidden by the censors and therefore published abroad and imported back into France; this trade had reached massive proportions by the latter part of the eighteenth century.24 It was therefore fortunate for the Parisian publishers that the trade in periodicals offered more of an outlet; though it in no way prepared them for the extraordinary surge in news publication that would follow with the revolutionary events in the century's last years.

  ‘Riens délicieux’

  In his issue of 5 May 1691, John Dunton published in the Athenian Mercury a daring and dramatic announcement:

  We have received this week a very ingenious letter from a lady in the country, who desires to know whether her sex might not send in questions as well as men, to which we answer yes they may, our design being to answer all manner of questions sent to us by either sex, that may be either useful to the public or to particular persons.25

  To drive home his point Dunton followed his editorial statement with fifteen questions on marriage. This was not an unconsidered initiative. The Athenian Mercury had now been going for two months, and Dunton had taken the temperature of his readership. This was the most dramatic declaration possible: that women were a welcome contributing part of the reading community, and Dunton eagerly embraced his role as torchbearer. The issue of 22 May was entirely made up of questions from women, and Dunton now announced that on the first Tuesday of every month the issue would be set aside to address feminine concerns.

  Although the French had been the great innovators in the seventeenth-century periodical market, it was English publishers who showed the most lively awareness of the potential of an expanding female readership. Both The Tatler and The Spectator actively courted female readers. In setting out his agenda for The Tatler in 1709, Richard Steele appealed explicitly to ‘public-spirited’ men, but not exclusively: ‘I resolve also to have something which may be entertainment to the fair sex, in honour of whom I have invented the title of this paper.’ It was a back-handed compliment, with its implication of inconsequential gossip, to which women were seen as particularly prone. It sets the tone of elabor
ate gallantry and condescension that characterised much of the engagement of essay periodicals with their female readers.26 The Spectator followed with Addison's insistence that ‘there are none to whom this paper will be more useful than to the female world’, and the evident success of the Spectator genre soon inspired a number of periodicals specifically directed at women readers. These proved less successful. Both The Female Tatler and The Whisperer, written in the persona of Jenny Distaff, Isaac Bickerstaff's half-sister, were blatant attempts to exploit the success of the Spectator brand, and neither succeeded.27 It would be a further thirty years before a periodical emerged with a robust and genuine female voice: Elizabeth Haywood's Female Spectator.

  The relationship between the earliest society periodicals and their female readers was complex. The editors were emphatic that their essays on morals and manners were particularly suitable for women, but they were also teasing and condescending. The essays were often couched as replies to a plaintive, tragicomical appeal for advice from a distressed female reader in a fix, confounded by some perplexing piece of social etiquette, or trapped by an unsuitable lover. Many of these letters give every appearance of having been written by the editors themselves. The convoluted explanations of the circumstances in which the correspondents found themselves certainly have more in common with the plots of contemporary dramatic pieces than with the lives of the allegedly inexperienced writers supposed to have penned them. These transparent devices allowed the essayists to have the best of both worlds: they could both titillate their readers and inhabit the moral ground with their responses; a device still widely practised, of course, in the serious papers’ reporting of scandal or celebrity today.