| 1693-1696 |
| original |
| No restrictions |
| 02/49/14/84 |
| Collection of leather bound periodicals (front cover missing), incorprating volume 12, no. 1 through volume 19, no. 29 (incomplete run) of The Athenian Gazette: or, Casuistical Mercury... London, Printed for John Dunton. An early coffee house periodical, The Mercury is considered to be the first regularly published newspaper in England.
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| "Brainchild of innovative author, publisher and bookseller John Dunton, The Athenian Mercury began life in 1691 as the Athenian Gazette. Unfortunately, someone else was using the name "Gazette," so Dunton was forced by the authorities to change the name of his new paper. The major innovation Dunton introduced was that readers could write questions to the editors and have them answered without having their identities revealed. The four writers who worked on this project were Dunton; mathematician Richard Sault; Samuel Wesley, a newly-graduated Anglican clergyman without a parish; and Norton, an Oxford Platonist, willing to work for free when his expertise was needed. Fictionalized as the Athenian Society, these four wrote twenty volumes of Mercuries over a six year period. The questions ranged from the silly to the profound, but the vast majority had to do with love, courtship, and marriage." |
