ABSTRACT
The NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE (1814–1836) was founded by Henry Colburn (d. 1855) and Frederick Shoberl as a conservative antagonist of the Monthly Magazine (q.v.). Edited until 1818 by a Dr. Watkins, from 1818 until June 1819 by Alaric A. Watts, the magazine was without an official editor until January 1821, when Colburn engaged Thomas Campbell as editor of a new series and soon afterwards hired Cyrus Redding as subeditor to do the actual work. Under the influence of Campbell (an old Whig) and Redding, a reformer of Leigh Hunt’s stamp, the New Monthly gained readers and contributors among the younger liberals. Hazlitt, in his Edinburgh Review article on “The Periodical Press” (May 1823), calls Taylor and Hessey’s London Magazine (q.v.) and the New Monthly Magazine the two best magazines then publishing. As with so many magazines (as distinguished from reviews), there was as much emphasis on articles, essays, fiction, poetry, or features as on reviews, and only when a reviewing article was a contributed feature was it accorded much space.
