“A Variety of Tastes”: The Lancet in the Early-Nineteenth-Century Periodical Press

This article examines the opening years of Thomas Wakley’s 1823 journal the Lancet, which rose to dominate the precarious early-nineteenth-century medical publishing market. The author argues that Wakley was an editor acutely aware of his journal’s relationship to a wider nonmedical press and that this awareness may have even contributed to the Lancet’s early success. In addition to, and often contiguous with, the journal’s strongly worded critique and detailed medical content, Wakley sought to attract readers by importing entertaining formal components from lay periodicals.