Exporting Revolution? The English-Language Press in Paris

Abstract

A series of English-language publishing ventures emerged in Paris in the early years of the French Revolution. These expatriate-led media ventures, which culminated in 1792 with the Paris Mercury newspaper, were aimed largely at bringing accounts of the Revolution directly from there to audiences in Britain and Ireland. They claimed to offer the freshest news direct from revolutionary Paris. But they also claimed that their reportage would be of an unfiltered veracity unavailable in rival accounts in the British domestic press, which they castigated as editorially corrupted and reactionary. Ultimately, though, a series of unforeseen but formidable obstacles emerged to these endeavours, highlighting the British media scene’s relative impenetrability to extraterritorial competition.