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| British Quarterly Review | |
|---|---|
| Title | British Quarterly Review |
| Discipline | Periodical literature, Reviews |
| Language | English |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Firstdate | 1845 |
| Finaldate | 1886 |
| Frequency | Quarterly |
| Publisher | Various |
British Quarterly Review The British Quarterly Review was a nineteenth-century periodical founded in 1845 that published critical essays, reviews, and original scholarship engaging with contemporary literature, science, theology, and politics. It served as a forum linking intellectual debates around figures and institutions active in Victorian Britain and Europe, contributing to public discourse alongside other periodicals and learned societies.
The journal was established amid debates involving figures associated with the Oxford Movement, the Reform Act 1832 aftermath, and the cultural shifts exemplified by writers such as Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Matthew Arnold. Its foundation coincided with the rise of periodicals like the Edinburgh Review, the North British Review, and the Westminster Review, and with the expansion of publishing houses such as John Murray and Smith, Elder & Co.. The Review navigated controversies around the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, scientific controversies provoked by Charles Darwin and Thomas Henry Huxley, and the literary rivalries involving Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning. During the mid-Victorian era it intersected with debates on the Crimean War, the Indian Rebellion of 1857, and diplomatic affairs related to the Concert of Europe.
The Review adopted a policy of critical engagement, positioning itself among periodicals that balanced advocacy and impartial criticism, similarly to the editorial practices of the Quarterly Review and the Edinburgh Review. Contributors included clergymen from dioceses such as Canterbury and York, academics from University of Oxford and University of Cambridge, and professionals linked to institutions like the Royal Society and the British Museum. It published reviews of works by authors including John Ruskin, Thomas Carlyle, George Eliot, and John Stuart Mill, and engaged with legal developments such as decisions of the House of Lords and reforms connected to the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834. The Review’s policy embraced submissions from scholars and public intellectuals affiliated with the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the Royal Geographical Society.
Editors and frequent contributors had ties to established cultural networks: clerical figures associated with the Tractarian movement; scholars connected to the Bodleian Library and the British Museum; and writers allied with publishing houses like Longman and Macmillan Publishers. Prominent 19th-century intellectuals whose works or reviews appeared in the Review’s pages included proponents and critics such as Herbert Spencer, Bishop Richard William Church, F. D. Maurice, John Henry Newman, and Benjamin Jowett. Literary critics and historians represented included Thomas Babington Macaulay, Henry Hallam, Edward Gibbon (reflections), and commentators on poetry like Alfred Lord Tennyson and Gerard Manley Hopkins; scientific essays referenced experiments and debates involving Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, and Joseph Dalton Hooker. Political and imperial subjects brought in analysts who wrote alongside figures involved in parliamentary debate, including associations with the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party.
The Review covered a range of themes: literary criticism of novels by George Eliot and Anthony Trollope; historical essays on periods such as the Napoleonic Wars and the English Civil War; theological enquiry reflecting disputes tied to the Oxford Movement and the Gorham Judgment; scientific commentary on works by Charles Darwin and correspondence involving Thomas Huxley; and discussions of legal and social reform touching on the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 and the Factory Acts. Articles engaged with travel narratives referencing explorations by David Livingstone and Richard Francis Burton and with geographical reports tied to the Royal Geographical Society. Reviews treated plays and poetry linked to William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and contemporary dramatists such as Oscar Wilde’s precursors, and addressed economic policy debates involving commentators influenced by Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill.
Contemporaries compared the Review to established journals like the Quarterly Review and the Edinburgh Review, and it was read by intellectuals active in institutions such as the Royal Society and the British Academy. Its critiques shaped reception histories for novels by Charlotte Brontë and Emily Brontë and influenced scholarly debate around scientific texts by Charles Darwin and mathematical work associated with Augustus De Morgan. Political essays were cited in parliamentary circles involving figures like Benjamin Disraeli and William Ewart Gladstone and informed commentary on imperial policy in debates over the British Raj. Later historians of Victorian culture, including scholars interested in the Victorian era, have drawn on its pages to reconstruct networks linking the claustrophobia—[forbidden generic term removed]—intellectual life of mid-century Britain to metropolitan publishing.
Issued quarterly, the Review’s physical format aligned with contemporary periodicals produced by firms such as John Murray and Smith, Elder & Co.. It circulated in libraries including the British Museum reading rooms and university collections at University of Oxford and University of Cambridge. Illustrations and plates occasionally accompanied articles, produced using techniques contemporary to the era of engraving and chromolithography employed by printers working for Bradbury and Evans and similar houses. The journal ceased regular publication in the late 19th century, its run concluding as the media landscape evolved with new weeklies and monthlies from publishers like Harper & Brothers and Cassell.
Category:Literary magazines published in the United Kingdom