A Skeleton of the Nation: Networks and Infrastructure in The Review

Abstract: This article argues that Daniel Defoe's tendency to write as a form of narrative cartographer predates his novels of the 1720s and owes much to his periodical writing in the early 1700s. Defoe's Review (1704–13) is an unusually peripatetic periodical, written while its author was travelling widely on the business of Robert Harley. Focusing on the periodical's early years (1704–5), this article explores how The Review acts as a repository for geospatial information. It uses correspondence and advertisements to consider how the periodical details the logistics of its publication and distribution, and how that distribution responds to changes in national infrastructure and politics.