As scientists question the recent dominance of the scientific journal, the varied richness of its past offers useful materials for reflection. This paper examines four innovative journals founded and run by leading publishers and men of science in the 1810s and 1820s, which contributed to a significant reimagining of the form. Relying on a new distinction between the ‘literary’ and the ‘scientific’ to define their market, those who produced the journals intended to maximize their readership and profits by making them to some extent ‘popular’. While these attempts ended in commercial failure, not least because of the rapidly diversifying periodical market in which they operated, their history makes clear the important role that commerce has played both in defining the purposes and audiences of scientific journals and in the conceptualization of the scientific project. It also informs the ongoing debate concerning how the multiple audiences for science can be addressed in ways that are commercially and practically viable.

中文翻译：

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科学，文学和大众：1813至1825年间英国的商业和科学期刊的重新构想。

当科学家们质疑科学期刊最近的主导地位时，其丰富多样的过去为反思提供了有用的材料。本文研究了1810年代和1820年代由领先的出版商和科学界人士创立和经营的四种创新期刊，这些期刊对这种形式的重大重新构想做出了贡献。依靠“文学”和“科学”之间的新区别来定义市场，那些生产期刊的人旨在通过在某种程度上使其“受欢迎”来最大程度地提高读者数量和利润。这些尝试以商业失败而告终，这不仅是因为它们经营的期刊市场迅速多样化，他们的历史清楚地表明了贸易在定义科学期刊的目的和受众以及科学项目的概念化方面所起的重要作用。它还为正在进行的关于如何以商业上和实践上可行的方式解决科学的多元化受众的辩论提供了信息。