, founded in 1802, helped to transform the practice of reviewing in Britain. From its inception, the

offered substantial essays on works being reviewed, often incorporating general reflections on the author or subject in question. Such leisurely analyses contrasted sharply with the more usual practice of the established reviews of the day, which tended to notice a larger number and wider range of books, generally in brief articles padded with substantial quotations.

, in contrast, set out with a decidedly less populist agenda; its goal, as it explained in its first number, was to identify and pay serious attention only to works that it considered to be of solid intellectual interest. It succeeded in making itself a cultural arbiter, and…

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Citation: Perkins, Pam. "Edinburgh Review, The". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 January 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=311, accessed 27 April 2025.]

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