A Romantic Circles Scholarly Resource

A note on sources: The main source for the appearance dates recorded in the following table is the publication announcements in a contemporary London newspaper, the Courier. These advertisements have been checked against a number of additional sources, including another newspaper, the Morning Chronicle, and the Monthly Literary Advertiser. References in manuscript letters have also proved useful, but, for various reasons, these sources can sometimes be misleading and must be used with care; however, I have been uniquely aided by an additional reliable source, pencil notations on the title pages of many of Anne Cleaver's bound volumes of the journal (present writer's collection). Anne Cleaver, the wife of the Bishop of Asaph, was a resident of Little Missenden, Buckinghamshire and a friend of Sir Thomas Henry Browne, Felicia Hemans's brother, to whom in her old age she presented her copies of the journal. Cleaver realised that there was significance in the journal's chronic lateness, significance later readers would perhaps miss when contemplating a well-ordered title page. Keeping in mind the high status the review-type journal aspired to, the Quarterly Review's habitual lateness put the lie to the haughty self-importance of this expensive, respectable flag-ship publication of the Tory establishment. By carefully recording the date when she received her copy, Anne Cleaver preserved for us a hint of the dissatisfaction, disorder and embarrassment that Gifford's tardiness engendered.