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I do have a passion for antiques and especially old books and magazines.
They are the true picture on an era, a time capsule of how people lived.
Just to touch the pages of something so old and read its contents like someone in the past did more than a 100 years ago is a big thrill for me...
Just discovered the existence of this wonderful 18th century magazine:
"The European Magazine and London Review"
Ebay can very educational!
This book is a compilation of the issues from January to June 1794...
SEVENTEEN NINETY-FOUR!!! Can you believe that? A book from almost 220 years ago!
They were reporting the French Revolution, and lamenting the execution of Marie Antoinette... America was just a super young country. These things just blow my mind...
Reading all this in archaic English... Wonder how many people have read those pages and where this book has been during all those years. The old paper, the antique type, the articles, so many thrills...
Fascinating!
Well, besides being an antiques fanatic, I am also a fashion enthusiast... So had to find a picture of what the ladies were wearing in 1794... I like to read the book and imagine what the people were wearing in those days...
Just look:
And now the BOOK itself!
Here are some shots of the amazing book I've just bought: the 1794 January to June issues of "The European Magazine and London Review"!
Amazing engravings... and someone during those 200+ years colored then by hand... A child perhaps?
A brief history of this magazine:
The European Magazine, and London Review was launched in January 1782, dedicated (according to its subtitle) to the mission of bringing to its readers "the Literature, History, Politics, Arts, Manners, and Amusements of the Age." Established by the journalist James Perry as the mouthpiece of the Philological Society of London, the European quickly passed under the proprietorship of the Shakespearean scholar Isaac Reed and his co-partners John Sewell and Daniel Braithwaite, who would preside over the magazine's fortunes during its first two decades. A contemporary of the Gentleman's Magazine, the EM in many ways was similar to its more famous and more successful counterpart. Like the GM, the European consisted primarily of articles and letters concerning literature, antiquarian matters, theology, science, biography, and current news, backed up by sections set aside in each monthly issue for book reviews, poetry, parliamentary reporting, theatre, and (generally) lists of births, deaths, marriages, promotions, and bankruptcies, the whole embellished with superb engravings. Like the Gentleman's Magazine, the European was nonpartisan though unswervingly loyal to Church, King, and Constitution, its editor specifically noting in 1790 that "there is not one Dissenter from the Church of England among either the Proprietors or Conductors of this Publication." Again like the GM, the European appealed primarily to a readership of clergymen, landed gentry, magistrates, physicians, antiquaries, and lovers of literature, though comparative sales figures in the late eighteenth century indicate that the EM was less successful than the GM in reaching that market, the EM's average sales totaling 3,250 to the GM's 4,550. Unlike the GM, unfortunately, the European offers limited opportunities for identifying the authors of the letters, articles, poems, and reviews that fill its volumes, as no staff copy of the EM, annotated with the names of contributors and comparable to the Nichols File of the GM, has survived. Though the authorship of a large proportion of the EM's nearly 50,000 pages remains unknown, a substantial number of attributions can be made based on the evidence of contemporary letters, obituaries, and literary histories; the pseudonyms and initials signed to contributions; the places whence they were sent; internal evidence contained in the items themselves; and publication data for works from which the EM reprinted excerpts.
