“the Question Project.” On John Dunton And The World’s First Advice Column

The publication that initiated nan world’s first individual proposal file did not statesman pinch that purpose successful mind. Rather, its founder, nan printer John Dunton, envisioned a bid of inexpensive azygous pages (broadsheets) printed connected some sides, nan eclectic contents of which would beryllium supplied by questions from readers, pinch responses from Dunton and his associates. The successful venture—the Athenian Gazette, aliases Casuistical Mercury, known much succinctly arsenic nan Athenian Mercury—eventually published thousands of inquiries and replies connected a wide assortment of topics.

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But astatine nan instigation of its readers it besides developed into a root of published proposal connected individual matters, nan world’s first. And it became nan longest-lasting periodical successful seventeenth-century England, its fame astatine slightest partially a consequence of its nationalist attraction to backstage questions.

Dunton later recalled that he was stepping successful a London parkland pinch a friend 1 time successful nan early outpouring of 1691 erstwhile nan thought for specified a publication abruptly occurred to him. In retrospect, nan premise seems simple, but successful its ain time it was unique. Dunton projected a play broadsheet periodical aimed chiefly astatine nan antheral patrons of London’s galore coffeehouses. Those men, known for wide-ranging discussions held complete nan new-fangled drink, would airs questions anonymously; nan Athenian Society, supposedly a ample squad of experts but fundamentally comprising Dunton and his 2 brothers-in-law, Richard Sault and Samuel Wesley, would reply them.

Dunton, past 32, was a bookseller pinch eclectic interests; Sault, his first collaborator, was a part-time mathematical tutor; and nan 29-year-old Wesley, whom they quickly recruited to subordinate them, was a struggling clergyman and writer who astir apt welcomed nan chance to gain other income. Dunton, Sault, and Wesley drew up a general statement for what Dunton called “the mobility project.”

Sault and Wesley agreed to draught answers to questions Dunton supplied, to meet each week to spell complete them, and connected Fridays to taxable capable transcript for nan adjacent week’s issues. Dunton could past change aliases reorder that transcript arsenic he wished. For their work, he promised to salary nan 2 men together 10 shillings a week aft publication (the balanced of astir $140 successful 2020 dollars). The broadsheets sold for a penny each to individual purchasers and by subscription to coffeehouses. Dunton astatine first concealed his involvement, identifying himself only arsenic nan Athenians’ “bookseller.” Letters were to beryllium sent to a coffeehouse alternatively than to his people office, and Dunton did not publically place himself arsenic nan Mercury’s printer until galore months had passed.

Dunton’s task met pinch contiguous success, processing into a awesome taste arena that spawned respective rivals and moreover a parody successful nan shape of a play, “The New Athenian Comedy.” The first telephone for questions connected 17 March 1691 elicited specified a plethora of queries that his first scheme quickly expanded to appearing doubly weekly, connected Tuesdays and Saturdays. Each broadsheet included 8 to 12 questions and answers, aliases 15 to 20 successful a emblematic week.

After 20 issues had appeared, Dunton bound nan ephemeral one-page two-sided sheets into ample volumes that his “Mercury women”—recruited from ubiquitous thoroughfare vendors—hawked to coffeehouse owners for 2 shillings sixpence (about $35 successful 2020 dollars), contending that customers would bask perusing them while chatting complete basking beverages. The bound volumes contained indexes, allowing group to find and publication topics of liking successful backmost issues, which successful move elicited much questions and helped to guarantee nan publication’s continuation.

Eventually, Dunton produced 20 volumes, nan past of which included only 10 numbers (rather than nan accustomed twenty, positive predominant supplements), because nan last play of publication included a months-long hiatus that followed nan decease of his wife. A fewer years later, beset by financial difficulties, he sold nan copyright to different printer, Andrew Bell, who produced a three-volume compilation titled The Athenian Oracle. In that version, nan Mercury’s contents remained disposable to readers moreover into nan nineteenth century.

The questions, which Dunton anticipated arsenic a coffeehouse habitué himself, ranged wide complete galore subjects. Among nan inquiries were immoderate connected nan Bible (Who was Cain’s wife? Did Adam and Eve eat existent apples?), subject (What is simply a star? Why does a dolphin travel a vessel until frightened away?) medicine (What causes smallpox? Can a crooked personification beryllium made consecutive again?), subject strategies (Is it amended to onslaught an enemy’s country, aliases to defender one’s own?), and rule (If a man dies, does his apprentice person to service nan widow?). The 3 men occasionally consulted others for master opinions, but their statement forbade additions to nan team, and nary 1 other ever formally joined their endeavor aliases participated much than sporadically. Dunton had created a root wherever coffeehouse patrons could find answers to questions that arose successful their discussions aliases inquire further ones not antecedently dealt pinch successful nan Mercury.

The Coffeehouse Mob (Collections of nan Huntington Library, San Marino, California)

The Athenians tried to eschew politics, since nan taxable was particularly fraught aft a melodramatic alteration of authorities 2 years earlier. In 1689, Protestant Members of Parliament had ousted nan Catholic Stuarts from nan English throne, formally concluding decades of turmoil that had begun successful nan 1640s pinch civilian warfare betwixt Parliament and nan Stuart monarchs. The Protestant Mary II and her Dutch relative and husband, William of Orange, jointly assumed nan throne successful 1689, but their norm was still contested by galore supporters of nan Stuarts.

Even aft 1695, erstwhile Parliament’s 1643 censorship rule for “correcting and regulating each abuses of nan press” was allowed to lapse, Dunton tried to debar including governmental opinions successful nan Mercury, different than broadly supporting nan authorities of William and Mary. A several-month suspension of publication during 1692 caused by a connection that ran afoul of nan censors taught Dunton an important instruction that stayed pinch him for nan remainder of nan decade.

After conscionable a fewer weeks, nan publication’s anonymous correspondents began to broach a taxable that nan 3 men had not anticipated: inquiries astir individual relationships, including courtship, marriage, and intersexual behavior. The first group of specified questions—thirteen successful all—came from a man; nan Athenians printed them and their answers successful nan thirteenth rumor successful early May 1691. Those queries were broadly and impersonally phrased: for example, should a personification wed personification they “cannot” emotion successful bid to summation entree to a bully estate? Don’t astir group wed excessively young? Is a female worse disconnected successful matrimony than a man?

In nan aforesaid issue, nan Athenians noted different unexpected development: “a woman successful nan country” had written to inquire “whether her activity mightiness not nonstop america questions arsenic good arsenic men.” Dunton’s first publication scheme centered connected an exclusively antheral audience, for only men frequented coffeehouses, though immoderate women worked successful them. That missive surely amazed Dunton and his colleagues, not only because it came from “the country” alternatively of London, but besides because it was from a woman, who must person accessed nan Mercury through a antheral comparative aliases acquaintance. Yet nan Athenians adapted quickly, explaining that they would “answer each mode of questions sent to america by either sex.”

Accordingly, a fewer weeks later a female submitted a akin group of impersonally phrased questions (for instance, is it due for women to beryllium learned? is beauty existent aliases imaginary?), which nan Athenians answered successful their eighteenth rumor successful precocious May 1691. The adjacent month, astatine nan extremity of what became nan first bound volume, they responded to nan first explicitly individual query they received—from a man accused of fathering a kid retired of wedlock (included successful nan selections successful this book, on pinch respective different examples of nan first questions). And so, erstwhile Dunton gathered nan broadsheets to create nan 2nd volume, he changed nan title page to bespeak openness to female arsenic good arsenic antheral querists, arsenic he termed those submitting questions.

Title page of nan 2nd bound measurement of nan Athenian Mercury (Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library)

Without intending to do so, and wholly successful consequence to queries posed by their readers, nan Athenians had initiated nan first individual proposal file ever published. Anonymity was intelligibly nan key: concealing nan personality of correspondents formed a portion of Dunton’s conception of “the mobility project” from nan outset. A study of a randomly selected measurement (six, published successful early 1692) by nan clever clever Helen Berry revealed that astir one-third of nan much than 2 100 inquiries successful that measurement fell into nan class of questions astir individual relationships. Dunton often grouped specified queries from some men and women into “ladies issues”; successful nan first 5 volumes, 45% of those inquiries came from men and 23% from women; 33% were not identifiable by gender.

Although nan Oxford-educated Wesley was nan only formally trained cleric successful nan group, Dunton was nan boy and grandson of ministers, and nan 3 men shared a broadly based Protestant outlook. They aligned themselves pinch nan run for nan Reformation of Manners, a activity led by Queen Mary II that sought to combat perceived excesses of nan day, particularly adultery and clandestine marriage. Themes of religion, sexuality, and morality were entwined successful nan minds of some nan Mercury’s readers and nan Athenians themselves. Their responses to correspondents who described various types of intersexual misbehavior seldom expressed sympathy for questioners’ plight but alternatively often decried nan immorality involved. Yet occasionally moreover successful specified instances nan proposal offered was judicious and must person been welcome.

One anonymous reader, aft perusing broadsheets that contained what they termed “pitiful” individual inquiries, charged nan Athenians pinch detracting from nan publication’s learned estimation by dealing pinch specified matters. But Dunton and his colleagues insisted connected nan value of nan topics their correspondents raised. “Many questions not only person an power connected nan happiness of peculiar men and nan bid of families, but moreover nan bully and use of larger societies and nan full commonwealth, which consists of families and azygous persons,” nan Athenians commented [3:13, 8 September 1691]. So, ignoring nan pointed disapproval from astatine slightest 1 personnel of their audience, nan Athenians continued to connection individual proposal to those who asked for it. And galore continued to ask… for nan adjacent six years.

The questions, whether accurately representing nan correspondents’ ain experiences aliases not (some said they were penning connected behalf of “a friend,” which nan Athenians often explicitly recognized arsenic a fiction), unfastened a singular model into nan backstage lives of men and women successful an era agelong earlier our own. Even though nan queries often formally referred to nan problems of “gentlemen” and “ladies,” their contented reveals that nan authors were not for nan astir portion drawn from nan ranks of nan very able but alternatively had middling position aliases aspired to upward mobility.

Many, though by nary intends all, were young, conscionable starting retired successful matrimony aliases a trade. They confronted each nan problems communal to that shape of life, including conducting courtships, acquiring property, and engaging successful premarital negotiations. In an era successful which literacy was expanding significantly, particularly successful nan ranks of municipality tradesmen and tradeswomen, reference and penning were nary longer optional but required skills for those who hoped to amended their batch successful life.

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From I Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer: Letters connected Love and Marriage from nan World’s First Personal Advice Column by Mary Beth Norton. Copyright © 2025. Available from Princeton University Press.