SOURCE: “The Spectator Abroad: The Fascination of the Mask,” in History of European Ideas, Vol. 22, No. 1, 1996, pp. 1-18.

In the following essay, Pallares-Burke describes how admiration for the Spectator quickly spread beyond England, spawning imitations throughout Europe. She also discusses how the journal's influence lasted long after it ceased publication.

This article offers some reflexions on the reception of the Spectator of Addison and Steele in Europe by focusing on the reforming power and authority it was believed to have at the time. My aim is to make a small contribution to the international history of the Spectator genre, a vast and rather unexplored territory, the importance of which was pointed out as long ago as 1929.¹

This second earliest English daily paper, considered even today to have been a major event in journalism, was published intermittently between 1711 and 1714, but it enjoyed a success which lasted much longer than...