Manushag N. Powell is assistant professor in the English Department at Purdue University. Her research interests are centered on the cultural history of literary forms and include early types of “genre” fiction writing, the periodical essay, and authors-as-characters.

Manushag N. Powell’s elegant work pushes further. . .arguments about the complexity of authorial personae in essay periodicals. ... Anyone interested in the wide range of periodicals that claimed to 'police the audience into behaving as an ideal English society,'. . . will find important angles by which to come at these texts. Casting a wider net, Powell also enlightens her reader about lesser-known periodicals. ... Powell’s excellent argument that 'the periodical represents authorship intensified' is well grounded. ... Powell draws a fascinating link between the eidolon and a paperbased economy. . . . Powell’s scholarship is meticulous and robust, and her writing is engaging. She deals with such essential aspects of the genre as anonymity, public-private transgression (the periodical moves beyond the coffee house as a space for reading and discussion), and instances when eidolons grew out of well-known eighteenth-century theatre. ... Even as she explicates the mixture of energy and enervation that informed the eidolon of eighteenth-century essay periodicals, Powell revitalizes our thinking about the genre.

• PrefaceChapter 1: Author and EidolonI.The periodical life cycleII.The EidolonIII.Anonymity?IV.Genre and the public sphereV.The performance of authorship; readers as spectators Chapter 2: Early Periodical Cross-DressingI.Lucubrations and sexual identityII.Release the Crackenthorpes: The embattled Female Tatler III.War on two fronts: The Female Tatler and the British ApolloChapter 3: Performance, Masculinity, and Paper Wars I.The Fielding-Hill Paper WarII.Acting manly in the Covent-Garden JournalIII.John Hill’s failure to fightIV.“Female” warriors enter the frayV.Eidolons on StageChapter 4: Femininity and the Periodical I.Confirmed bachelors and spinsters: Eidolons and the problem of marriage II.“Below the Dignity of the human Species:” Establishing authority in Montagu and Haywood III.The Old Maid: Frances Brooke’s “Freeborn Briton” versus the coffee-house Connoisseur

Manushag N. Powell is assistant professor in the English Department at Purdue University. Her research interests are centered on the cultural history of literary forms and include early types of “genre” fiction writing, the periodical essay, and authors-as-characters.

Manushag N. Powell’s elegant work pushes further. . .arguments about the complexity of authorial personae in essay periodicals. ... Anyone interested in the wide range of periodicals that claimed to 'police the audience into behaving as an ideal English society,'. . . will find important angles by which to come at these texts. Casting a wider net, Powell also enlightens her reader about lesser-known periodicals. ... Powell’s excellent argument that 'the periodical represents authorship intensified' is well grounded. ... Powell draws a fascinating link between the eidolon and a paperbased economy. . . . Powell’s scholarship is meticulous and robust, and her writing is engaging. She deals with such essential aspects of the genre as anonymity, public-private transgression (the periodical moves beyond the coffee house as a space for reading and discussion), and instances when eidolons grew out of well-known eighteenth-century theatre. ... Even as she explicates the mixture of energy and enervation that informed the eidolon of eighteenth-century essay periodicals, Powell revitalizes our thinking about the genre.

• PrefaceChapter 1: Author and EidolonI.The periodical life cycleII.The EidolonIII.Anonymity?IV.Genre and the public sphereV.The performance of authorship; readers as spectators Chapter 2: Early Periodical Cross-DressingI.Lucubrations and sexual identityII.Release the Crackenthorpes: The embattled Female Tatler III.War on two fronts: The Female Tatler and the British ApolloChapter 3: Performance, Masculinity, and Paper Wars I.The Fielding-Hill Paper WarII.Acting manly in the Covent-Garden JournalIII.John Hill’s failure to fightIV.“Female” warriors enter the frayV.Eidolons on StageChapter 4: Femininity and the Periodical I.Confirmed bachelors and spinsters: Eidolons and the problem of marriage II.“Below the Dignity of the human Species:” Establishing authority in Montagu and Haywood III.The Old Maid: Frances Brooke’s “Freeborn Briton” versus the coffee-house Connoisseur

Manushag N. Powell is assistant professor in the English Department at Purdue University. Her research interests are centered on the cultural history of literary forms and include early types of “genre” fiction writing, the periodical essay, and authors-as-characters.

Manushag N. Powell’s elegant work pushes further. . .arguments about the complexity of authorial personae in essay periodicals. ... Anyone interested in the wide range of periodicals that claimed to 'police the audience into behaving as an ideal English society,'. . . will find important angles by which to come at these texts. Casting a wider net, Powell also enlightens her reader about lesser-known periodicals. ... Powell’s excellent argument that 'the periodical represents authorship intensified' is well grounded. ... Powell draws a fascinating link between the eidolon and a paperbased economy. . . . Powell’s scholarship is meticulous and robust, and her writing is engaging. She deals with such essential aspects of the genre as anonymity, public-private transgression (the periodical moves beyond the coffee house as a space for reading and discussion), and instances when eidolons grew out of well-known eighteenth-century theatre. ... Even as she explicates the mixture of energy and enervation that informed the eidolon of eighteenth-century essay periodicals, Powell revitalizes our thinking about the genre.

• PrefaceChapter 1: Author and EidolonI.The periodical life cycleII.The EidolonIII.Anonymity?IV.Genre and the public sphereV.The performance of authorship; readers as spectators Chapter 2: Early Periodical Cross-DressingI.Lucubrations and sexual identityII.Release the Crackenthorpes: The embattled Female Tatler III.War on two fronts: The Female Tatler and the British ApolloChapter 3: Performance, Masculinity, and Paper Wars I.The Fielding-Hill Paper WarII.Acting manly in the Covent-Garden JournalIII.John Hill’s failure to fightIV.“Female” warriors enter the frayV.Eidolons on StageChapter 4: Femininity and the Periodical I.Confirmed bachelors and spinsters: Eidolons and the problem of marriage II.“Below the Dignity of the human Species:” Establishing authority in Montagu and Haywood III.The Old Maid: Frances Brooke’s “Freeborn Briton” versus the coffee-house Connoisseur