By George Mair
IT WAS the Scottish magazine that scandalised society, sparked pistol duels and was so popular that it could reject works from literary luminaries such as Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert Louis Stevenson.
The esteem in which Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine was once held has diminished over the years. However, the once heavyweight publication is set to emerge from the shadows by way of an upcoming exhibition at the National Library of Scotland.
Founded 200 years ago the magazine which came to be known as Maga grew to be one of the most influential reviews of the Victorian age.
One of its strengths was in publishing new fiction. A number of literary classics, including Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, George Eliot’s Middlemarch and John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps, made their first appearance in print in the magazine. Competition to appear within its pages was fierce and other great writers including Conan Doyle and Louis Stevenson were among those who had submissions rejected by the magazine.
The first issue of the magazine appeared on April 1, 1817 and it was designed as a combative Tory counterpoint to the existing Whig-supporting Edinburgh Review. Its reception was lukewarm, resulting in the publisher William Blackwood firing its founding editors and starting afresh.
The issue which appeared in October that year was never going to be ignored. Blackwood and his new editors – John Gibson Lockhart and John Wilson - decided to stir things up and controversy was to be courted as a sales tactic.
Notable public figures, among them the magazine’s original editors, were lampooned in one article about the ancient Chaldee manuscript that professed to be the discovery of an ancient biblical text.
This was the shape of things to come. Readers were both scandalised and captivated by the satirical attacks on prominent figures and the harsh reviews handed out, particularly to certain members of the London literati.
It resulted in several lawsuits being brought against the magazine. One quarrel in 1821 regarding an attack on the “Cockney school” of poetry ended in a pistol duel in London which resulted in the death of the editor of the London Magazine, John Scott.
Although the magazine continued into the 20th century, its best days were behind it and it finally ceased publication in 1980.
Manuscripts curator Dr Ralph McLean, who is overseeing the exhibition, said: “Blackwood’s has left behind a rich legacy as one of the most original and influential periodicals to have been published in Britain.”
It includes a copy of the first ever issue from 200 years ago. The display also features some unusual items such as a 1918 edition which saved the life of a soldier during the First World War by absorbing the impact of a bullet. That wasn’t the only life the magazine saved either, in 1841 a copy took the brunt of a sword blow in the Afghan War.
Despite stirring up controversy initially Blackwood’s went from strength to strength, publishing the work of a succession of literary talent including the Ettrick Shepherd James Hogg, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Galt, Margaret Oliphant and a great many others.
The free exhibition entitled “Laws were made to be broken”: Blackwood’s Magazine at 200 runs until July 2 at the National Library of Scotland.
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