The Edinburgh Review was one of the most influential magazines of the 19th century. It took for its motto "judex damnatur ubi nocens absolvitur" ("The judge is condemned when the guilty is acquitted.") from Publilius Syrus. Started in 1802 by Francis Jeffrey, Sydney Smith and Henry Brougham it was published by Archibald Constable in quarterly issues until 1929. The magazine began as a literary and political review and under its first editor, Francis Jeffrey the magazine was a strong supporter of the Whig party, Laissez-faire politics and regularly called for political reform. Its main rival was The Quarterly Review which supported the Torys. The magazine was also noted for its attacks on the "Lake Poets" particularly William Wordsworth.

The Edinburgh Review was restarted in the 1960s and is still issued.

An earlier short-lived magazine with a similar title and purpose Edinburgh Magazine and Review (1773 - 1776) was published monthly but has no other connection to the later version.

Notable contributors

• Thomas Arnold
• Richard Harris Barham
• Thomas Brown
• Henry Hallam
• William Hamilton
• Abraham Hayward
• William Hazlitt
• Felicia Hemans
• James Henry Leigh Hunt
• George Cornewall Lewis
• Thomas Macaulay
• Sir James Mackintosh
• Robert Montgomery
• John Playfair
• Henry Reeve
• Charles William Russell
• Sir Walter Scott
• Arthur Penrhyn Stanley

External links

• Faximile of first edition
• Current edition homepage