This collection of essays is the result of a major conference focusing specifically on the role of Scotland's print culture in shaping the literature and politics of the long eighteenth century. In contrast to previous studies, this work treats Blackwood's Magazine as the culmination of a long tradition rather than a starting point.

Introduction, Alex Benchimol, Rhona Brown, David Shuttleton; Chapter 1 Newspapers, the Early Modern Public Sphere and the 1704-5 Worcester Affair, Karin Bowie; Chapter 2 Advertising and the Edinburgh Evening Courant, Stephen W. Brown; Chapter 3 'A Very Proper Specimen of Great Improvement': The Edinburgh Review and the Moderate Literati, Ralph McLean; Chapter 4 Wilkes and Scottish Liberty: The Reception of John Wilkes in the Weekly Magazine, or Edinburgh Amusement, Rhona Brown; Chapter 5 The Buzz about the Bee : Policing the Conversation of Culture in the 1790s, Jon Mee; Chapter 6 'The Pith o' Sense, and Pride o' Worth': Robert Burns and the Glasgow Magazine (1795), Nigel Leask; Chapter 7 Edinburgh Periodical Writing and James Hogg's the Spy, Gillian Hughes; Chapter 8 Medical Discourse and Ideology in the Edinburgh Review : A Chaldean Exemplar, Megan Coyer; Chapter 9 The Death of Maggie Scott: Blackwood's, the Scots Magazine and Periodical Eras, David Stewart; afterword Afterword, Murray Pittock;

Alex Benchimol, Rhona Brown, David Shuttleton