Communal Reception, Mary Shelley, and the ‘Blackwood’s School’ of Criticism

Abstract

When in the early 1820s William Frederick Deacon set about writing a caricature of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine for his planned book of literary parodies, Warreniana, he had a broad palette of characteristically Blackwoodian tics, tropes, and dogmas to draw upon. Even though at the time the magazine was but a few years old, it had developed so wide an audience and so distinctive a voice that Deacon could fully expect his readers to grasp and delight in the pitch-perfect tenor of his parody. In the first paragraph alone, Deacon deftly works in digs at Maga’s penchant for fictive voices, breezy colloquialism, and, above all, intemperance and braggadocio:

We are desirous, my public, of talking with you on two subjects of infinite national importance, to wit, ourselves and Warren’s Blacking. As our rheumatism (thanks to the Odontist) is somewhat abated, and we are now seated at Ambrose’s, with a jug of hot toddy on one side of us, and our beloved O’Doherty on the other, we intend to be exceedingly amiable, eloquent, and communicative. But by the bye, when were we ever otherwise? Our dispositions, like our alimentary organs, are always gently open; and though some pluckless flutterlings of Cockaigne may wince at the occasional effervescence of our Tory bile, yet the majority of the civilised world will bear witness to our benevolent genius.¹