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And Eighteenth-Century England chapter 6 From Failed Republic to Polite Polis: Ancient Athens in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century England Christine Zabel In 1691, the bookseller and publisher John Dunton (1659–1732) came up with an innovative idea that would prove to be the biggest success of his life. He created a previously unknown type of periodical in which the readers could actively participate. They could send in questions relating to all kinds of prac- tical and theoretical matters such as, for example, cooking, sexuality, mor- als, religion and physics. Dunton’s declared aim for this new periodical was that it would enable men and women, regardless of their social status and background, to acquire a better education. In order to be able to answer the readers’ questions, Dunton brought together a group of specialists—a philos- opher, a theologian, a mathematician and a writer—which regularly met in Smith’s Coffeehouse to answer the incoming queries from readers. With this innovative approach, Dunton hoped to be able to answer “all the most Nice and Curious Questions proposed by the Ingenious of Either Sex” and thereby to enlighten his contemporaries.1 For his enterprise he chose the name Athe- nian Gazette or Athenian Mercury, as the periodical was later called, and the group of self-declared experts referred to itself as the “Athenian Society.”2 Dunton’s periodical was very successful and appeared twice a week for almost 1 Helen Berry, Gender, Society and Print Culture in Late-Stuart England (Aldershot, etc., 2003), 6. The members of this distinguished circle meeting in Smith’s Coffeehouse consisted of Dun- ton’s brother in law, the poet and churchman Samuel Wesley (bap. 1662–1735), father of John and Charles Wesley, the founding figures of the Methodist Church; another brother in law, the mathematician and writer Richard Saul (d. 1702) and the theologian, philosopher and writer John Norris (1657–1711). But Dunton liked to let his readers believe that the “Athenian Society” was larger and that it had a specialist for every imaginable topic: Ibidem, 20. 2 The name Athenian Gazette [full title: Athenian Gazette, or Casuistical Mercury, Resolving all the most Nice and Curious Questions proposed by the Ingenious of Either Sex] was soon re- placed by Athenian Mercury, because the London Gazette complained that the name was too similar to its own and could therefore confuse certain readers: Berry, Gender, Society and Print Culture, 21. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi �0.��63/978900435�387_008 <UN> 132 Zabel seven years, from March 1691 to June 1697.3 In 1697 when Dunton, devastated by the death of his wife, could no longer continue his project, Andrew Bell republished the Athenian Mercury in four volumes as the Athenian Oracle.4 When Dunton took up his enterprise again in 1704, he created several spin-offs which all kept the name “Athenian” in their titles. He founded the Athenae Re- divivae: or the Athenian Oracle as well as the Athenian Sport: or, Two Thousand Paradoxes Merrily Argued.5 In the years to come, he would also create the Athe- nian Spy, a question-and-answer publication that focused on female readers.6 Furthermore, in 1692 Dunton engaged Charles Gildon (1665–1724) to write the History of the Athenian Society.7 Dunton not only deliberately opted for the adjective “Athenian” and did so repeatedly, he also came up, inspired from the biblical description of the curi- ous Athenians in Acts 17, 21, with the concept of “Athenianism” which is laid out further in his book with the same title: But, Gentlemen, as I publish every distinct Treatise for Real Athenianism, and give it the Name of a NEW PROJECT, ‘tis necessary I here tell you 3 Ibidem, 2 and Helen Berry, “Politeness in Eighteenth-Century England: Moll King’s Coffee House and the Significance of the ‘Flash Talk.’ The Alexander Prize Lecture, read April 7th 2000,” Transactions of the Royal Society 6/11 (2001): 65–81, 66ff. 4 Member of the Athenian Society, The Athenian Oracle, being an entire collection of all the valuable questions and answers in the old Athenian mercuries (London, 1703). 5 John Dunton, Athenæ redivivæ: Or the new Athenian Oracle, Under Three General Heads, etc. (London, 1704). With this project, Dunton responded to Daniel Defoe’s attempt to copy his concept of a question-and-answer newspaper, which apparently had made Dunton very an- gry; see also Berry, Gender, Society and Print Culture, 25. John Dunton, Athenian sport: or, two thousand paradoxes merrily argued, to amuse and divert the age: as a Paradox in praise of a Paradox, etc. (London, 1707). 6 John Dunton, The Athenian spy: discovering the secret letters which were sent to the Athenian society by the most ingenious ladies of the three kingdoms, etc. (London, 1704). Dunton was the first bookseller who showed an awareness of the market potential of female readers and who provided a periodical that was explicitly meant for both sexes. In 1694 he even published a dictionary for ladies: Nathanael Carpenter and John Dunton, The Ladies Dictionary, being a general entertainment of the fair-sex a work never attempted before in English (London, 1694). Dunton also published female authors, for example Elizabeth Singer Rowe, Poems on Several Occasions written by Philomela (London, 1696). The Athenian Gazette/Athenian Mercury was the first seventeenth century periodical that addressed both sexes. See also Berry, Gender, Society and Print Culture, 7f. 7 Charles Gildon, The History of the Athenian Society, for the resolving all nice and curious questions. By a gentleman who got secret intelligence of their whole proceedings. To which are prefix’d several poems, written by Mr. Tate, Mr. Motteux, Mr. Richardson, and others (London, 1692). See also Helen Berry, “Dunton, John (1659–1732),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biog- raphy (Oxford, 2004). <UN>.
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