Reviews as Database: Reading the Review Periodical in Eighteenth-Century England

Peiser examines the Monthly Review (1749-1845) and the Critical Review (1756-1817) in terms of format and structure, and turn to first-hand accounts of reading Reviews along with eighteenth-century marginalia, to identify one method contemporary readers used to read review periodicals, which term catalogue-style reading. Catalogue-style reading is essentially searching a database, and the Review periodical has always been a database. Articles from the Monthly or the Critical were often reprinted in other periodicals, like the Literary Intelligencer, enabling them to reach yet another reading audience. The Lady's Magazine was known to reprint excerpts from Reviews to fill the space in that magazine. But those who read the Review periodical itself, evidence shows, often practiced catalogue-style reading.