“The Great Belief-Producers”: Public Confidence, the Credit Economy, and the Quarterly Reviews (1797-1833)

This project studies the relation between early-nineteenth-century British periodicals and the credit economy. It argues that literary reviews fostered cultural acceptance of new economic mechanisms springing from the financial crisis caused by the Anglo-French War (1793-1802). The project proposes that the quarterlies were crucial in normalising the concept of virtual value and established cultural confidence in the emerging credit economy.