In the excerpt that follows, Shevelow surveys periodicals targeted at women readers, tracing their evolution in the course of the eighteenth century and examining the means by which they defined themselves and their audiences.

In the following excerpt, Hilliard examines why Thomas Nashe's 1592 pamphlet Pierce Penniless, with its satire of Elizabethan ideals, opened the author up to widespread criticism.

In this essay, Maurer explores how early periodicals depicted and defined gender roles, family dynamics, and other social and domestic values.

In the following excerpts, Dugaw examines the popular appeal of Mary Ambree, an early seventeenth-century ballad about a transvestite warrior woman, a story that appeared in various manifestations in chapbooks for over two hundred years.

In following excerpt, Stephens traces the history of Addison and Steele's periodical the Guardian, emphasizing its involvement in politics as the cause of its demise.

In the following essay, Pallares-Burke describes how admiration for the Spectator quickly spread beyond England, spawning imitations throughout Europe. She also discusses how the journal's influence lasted long after it ceased publication.

In the following essay, Gordon argues that the figure of Mr. Spectator, the fictional editorial voice of the Spectator, was designed to be “a mechanism to reform London society,” part of the journal's “disciplinary regime based on omnipotent surveillance and the threat of public exposure.”

In the following excerpt, Würzbach analyzes the relationship between English ballads, theater, and commerce between 1550 and 1650.

In the essay that follows, Knight considers the linking of morality and economics in the Spectator, maintaining that the journal delineated “the workings of ethics through an economic order in which wealth, achievement, and status become public representations of moral goodness.”

In the essay that follows, Dykstal offers a Marxist analysis of the Spectator's role in defining “taste” as an “organizing principle of the public sphere,” in which private rectitude is publicly recognized. In this formulation, the critic contends, taste “rests, ultimately, not on the private apprehension of beauty but on the public defense of it.”

In following essay, Furtwangler contends that Mr. Spectator, the fictional editorial voice of the Spectator, was a “didactic figure” designed to promote the journal's “identification of moral improvement with reading improvement.”

In the essay that follows, Bateson credits Richard Steele with the invention of the periodical essay but argues that it was Joseph Addison's brilliant prose style that assured the success of the genre.

In the following excerpt, Simons discusses how broadsides were created and produced and illustrates how they slowly changed the social aspirations of English commoners.

In the following excerpt, Shaaber shows that broadside ballads and other inexpensive verse often served as a means of disseminating news about the British royalty and popular heroes, and he notes that these publications eventually evolved into newspapers.

In the essay that follows, Berry examines how satire was used and developed in the Spectator, primarily by Joseph Addison. The critic asserts that Addison felt that legitimate satire must be good-natured, based in morality, and used “for the Benefit of Mankind.”

In the essay that follows, Bond analyzes Addison's efforts in the Spectator to redefine the scope and methods of literary criticism.

In this essay, first presented at a 1976 symposium, Winton examines Steele's editorial direction of the Tatler and the Spectator. The critic maintains that Steele introduced a number of innovations into print journalism, most notably the letters-to-the-editor feature, which permitted an unprecedented interaction between writer and audience.

In the following excerpt, Rollins explains that a great many sixteenth- and seventeenth-century broadsides, ballads, and jigs served not only as popular entertainments but as journalism and social commentary as well.

In this essay, Dwyer analyzes the moral perspective promulgated by Addison and Steele through the persona of Mr. Spectator. In response to the ethical confusion of English society, this character, Dwyer contends, “attempted to present virtue and contentment in a clearer, basically classical, light in the pages of his papers.”

In the following excerpt, Watt rejects critical studies that portray the broadside ballad as appealing only to lower-class sensibilities, and argues that the ballads also made their way into “respected” culture as they served important social and cultural needs.

In the following excerpt, Hodgart examines how broadside ballads went from being considered “low art” in the seventeenth century to being a form that was embraced by British literary masters such as William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge by the end of the eighteenth century.

In the following excerpt, France discusses the role of the Spectator in the development of the essay form, noting the characteristic “blend of seriousness and ease, Christianity and worldliness” in the pieces printed in the journal.

In the following excerpt, Zall traces the evolution of jests and puns in English printed materials beginning in the 1400s, examining in detail works from the seventeenth century.

In the following excerpt, Thompson argues that Samuel Pepys's collection of seventeenth-century ballads and chapbooks are invaluable aids to understanding the lives and tastes of ordinary English people of the period.