Description

The Tatler was founded in 1709 by Richard Steele, Jonathan Swift and Joseph Addison. Steele used the nom de plume of "Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire", the first such consistently adopted journalistic persona. Steele's idea was to publish the news and gossip heard in London coffeehouses, hence the title, and seemingly, from the opening paragraph, to leave the subject of politics to the newspapers, while presenting Whiggish views and correcting middle-class manners, while instructing "these Gentlemen, for the most part being Persons of strong Zeal, and weak Intellects... what to think. " To assure complete coverage of local gossip, a reporter was placed in each of the city's popular coffeehouses, or at least such were the datelines: accounts of manners and mores were datelined from White's (a London gentlemen's club); literary notes from Will's (a coffeehouse); notes of antiquarian interest were dated from the Grecian Coffee House; and news items from St. James's. In its first incarnation, it was published three times a week, but for only two years, from April 12, 1709 to January 2, 1711. A collected edition was published in 1710-11, with the title The Lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq..