Broadly speaking, Victorian scientific periodicals fell into one of two categories: specialist periodicals aimed at publishing original research for an audience of scientific researchers, or popularizing periodicals meant to share news about science with a broader readership. When astronomer Norman Lockyer founded Nature in 1869, he envisioned his new weekly as a member of the latter group. That vision resulted partly from his own wish to raise science's profile in Great Britain and partly from the interests of his publisher Macmillan and Company, which bankrolled Nature with its eye on eventual profit. This paper shows that the pressure for Nature to be a financial success shaped Lockyer's approach to editing and thus shaped Nature's content, leading the magazine to occupy an unusual space in the landscape of Victorian science publishing and placing unique burdens on its editor. Nature quickly moved away from Lockyer's initial vision of a popularizing magazine and became known as a periodical by and for researchers. The magazine's popularity among scientific researchers set it apart from its closest inspiration, the commercial weekly Chemical News. But in contrast to contemporary editors at learned society journals, such as George Gabriel Stokes at the Philosophical Transactions, Lockyer did not linger over the scientific details of Nature's papers. Instead, articles for Nature were usually either accepted or rejected immediately, with little editorial involvement shaping their scientific content. The difference between editing Nature and editing other research periodicals is clearly visible in the selection of Richard Gregory as Lockyer's successor in 1919. Most research periodicals selected eminent men of science as their editors‐in‐chief. Gregory, a science writer and long‐time subeditor at Nature, did not lend scientific prestige to the masthead, but was eminently qualified to maintain Nature's distinctive content and its profitability for Macmillan and Company.

中文翻译：

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编辑工作：诺曼·洛克耶（Norman Lockyer），麦克米伦公司（Macmillan and Company）和《自然》杂志的编辑，1869年至1919年

从广义上讲，维多利亚时代的科学期刊分为两类之一：旨在为科研人员提供原始研究成果的专业期刊，或者是旨在与更广泛的读者分享科学新闻的期刊。当天文学家诺曼·洛克耶（Norman Lockyer）于1869年创立《自然》杂志时，他设想自己的新周刊是后者的成员。该愿景部分是由于他自己希望提高英国的科学知名度，部分是由于他的出版商Macmillan and Company的利益，后者出版了《自然》杂志，着眼于最终的利润。本文表明，自然成为财务成功的压力塑造了洛克耶的编辑方法，从而塑造了自然的内容，导致该杂志在维多利亚时代的科学出版领域占据了不寻常的空间，并为其编辑人员带来了独特的负担。大自然很快就脱离了洛克耶（Lockyer）的一本普及杂志的最初构想，并被研究人员和研究人员称为期刊。该杂志在科学研究人员中的流行使它与最近的灵感（商业周刊《化学新闻》）脱颖而出。但是，与学术界杂志的当代编辑（例如《哲学交易》的乔治·加布里埃尔·斯托克斯（George Gabriel Stokes））形成鲜明对比的是，洛克耶尔并未徘徊在《自然》论文的科学细节上。相反，有关自然的文章通常被立即接受或拒绝，几乎没有编辑参与就影响了它们的科学内容。编辑自然和其他研究期刊之间的区别可以从1919年理查德·格雷戈里（Richard Gregory）选为洛克耶的继任者中清楚地看出。大多数研究期刊都选择了杰出的科学人担任总编辑。格雷戈里，科普作家和长期的副主编，在大自然，没借给科学声望的报头，但绝对有资格来维持自然的独特的内容及其对麦克米伦和公司盈利能力。