Murder by Ridicule: the End of the Analytical

Abstract

The preface to the bound volume of the Anti-Jacobin Review for 1798 congratulates the journal on the part it played in the ‘dissolution’ of the Analytical Review.¹ And in March 1799, a correspondent would write mockingly to the Anti-Jacobin’s editor:

We are informed, upon the best authority, that the untimely death of the Analytical Review is deeply regretted by all the friends of liberal enquiry. Tom Paine, in Paris, is miserable; the expatriated illustrious sufferer, in America [Joseph Priestley], is inconsolable; and the virtuous Godwin laments it nearly as much as the departure of his immaculate consort [Mary Wollstonecraft].²