This is an 1886 issue of The Quarterly Review, the influential British periodical founded in 1809 as a Tory rival to the Edinburgh Review. Like all numbers of the journal, it gathers lengthy, anonymous review-essays on a wide range of subjects, including literature, history, politics, science, and current affairs.
The articles take recently published books as their starting point, but expand into substantial discussions reflecting the cultural and political concerns of late-Victorian Britain. Written by various unnamed contributors in the magazine’s customary learned style, the issue offers a snapshot of educated opinion of its day. For historians and readers interested in nineteenth-century intellectual life, such volumes of the Quarterly Review preserve valuable commentary on the books, ideas, and debates that engaged the British reading public.