Selections from the Tatler and the Spectator

Steele was born in the same year as Joseph Addison, whom he knew at Charterhouse School and at Oxford, which Steele left before receiving his degree. In 1709 he began the first of a series of periodicals that established the characteristics of the "periodical essay." This essay form, which was short and usually addressed personal topics, evolved primarily from journalistic sources and for journalistic purposes. Nevertheless, the essays appearing in The Tatler (from 1709) and The Spectator (from 1711) exerted a tremendous influence. Addison, who was a frequent contributor to both periodicals, displayed insight and elegance in his 42 numbers of The Tatler; Steele, with less elegance and wit, produced 188 and showed a warmth and sympathy that many readers preferred to Addison's cool intelligence. Steele's best-known play, The Conscious Lovers (1722), retreats from the artifice and aristocratic notions of Restoration drama, promoting instead a sound middle-class gentility. Married twice, Steele died in Wales, where he lived because of his debts. 020