The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine.

Table of Contents

Volume 1 · Issue 1 · January 1856

Sir Philip Sidney — The Prelude — Chapter I — “Clio in the Nineteenth Century”

A Victorian essay reflecting on modern historical writing, arguing for vivid, human-centred history through the life, character, and moral imagination associated with Sir Philip Sidney.

Sir Philip Sidney — The Prelude — Chapter II — “Not all Shadows”

A continuation of The Prelude, examining the moral light and intellectual inheritance of the past, and rejecting purely pessimistic readings of history in favour of continuity and renewal.

Alfred Tennyson — “An Essay. In Three Parts.” — Part I

The opening instalment of a critical essay on Alfred Tennyson’s poetry, situating his work within contemporary literary culture and assessing its emotional depth, symbolism, and modern relevance.

The Cousins — Edward Burne-Jones

A dramatic 1856 tale of lost love, family ruin, poverty, spiritual crisis, and renewal, following Charles from a society ball through the winter streets of London and into exile, illness, and unexpected redemption.

The Story of the Unknown Church — William Morris

A haunting medieval tale of a master-mason whose search for a forgotten church becomes a meditation on memory, craftsmanship, loss, faith, and the enduring power of beauty. Generally attributed to William Morris, this early Gothic romance foreshadows many of the themes that would later define the Arts and Crafts movement.

Exhibit Notes

Curator’s Notes

At first glance, The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine can look like a neat Victorian artefact: a slim monthly from 1856, earnest in tone, confident in its reading habits, and far removed from the pressures of modern life. But that first impression is only the doorway. Read as an encounter—rather than a relic—the magazine becomes something warmer and more human: a record of young writers trying, in public, to find a language sturdy enough for literature, history, art, and moral attention.

The connection to William Morris is part of what makes these pages feel alive. This is not “Morris the monument” or “Morris the movement,” but Morris at the beginning—helping to shape a forum that could hold serious work without becoming purely academic, and idealism without becoming decorative. The magazine emerged from a small circle of friends between Oxford and Cambridge, including Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, and it gathered around it a wider set of voices, among them Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The specifics are Victorian, certainly, yet the pattern remains familiar: a group of young people building a shared space for thought, insisting that reading and making are not luxuries, but forms of ethical and imaginative practice.

It is easy to assume that a nineteenth-century literary magazine will reward only specialists. A useful reframing is to treat it as a working document—pages meant to be dipped into, argued over, returned to, and gradually understood. The essays and poems are not simply “about” their subjects; they are also about what it feels like to care for language, to take history seriously, and to test the moral weight of art. The language is old, but the concerns are not.

That is why we believe it is worth your time now. These pieces invite a slower kind of attention: not the attention that seeks mastery, but the attention that notices how certain questions repeat across generations. What does it mean to write history so it remains human? How should we read a poet in the present tense, rather than as a museum figure? What obligations do art and imagination place upon us—if any at all? The magazine does not always answer these questions cleanly, and that, too, is part of its value.

Our release is progressive. The Phillaneum editorial team is redoing the OCR transcription carefully, so the text reads with clarity and fidelity rather than mechanical roughness. Alongside the restored text, we add curator’s notes where context helps the modern reader without flattening the Victorian voice. Over time, each issue will also be supported by a glossary and a growing set of frequently asked questions, so that unfamiliar names, references, and cultural assumptions become companions rather than barriers.

What emerges, we hope, is not simply a “republication,” but a renewed relationship with the material. The magazine becomes more than information; it becomes a small intellectual room you can step into—quiet, serious, and surprisingly welcoming—where the past is not displayed at a distance, but met at reading-length.

Notes & Memoranda

Editorial Policy

This article is a heritage reprint from its original publication and is presented as a historical record. Phillaneum seeks to preserve such material in both human- and machine-readable form, with minor adjustments to format, layout, and typography made to improve clarity and accessibility for modern readers.

In some cases, original illustrations have been carefully re-rendered using contemporary tools to improve legibility on modern displays. Where this has occurred, the imagery remains faithful to the source material in composition and detail, and is intended as a visual facsimile rather than a reinterpretation of the historical artefact.

This site is not associated with Oxford, Cambridge, or The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine. Editorial commentary and contextual material are provided separately by Phillaneum curators to support historical understanding and do not alter the original source text. This article is presented for cultural and historical interest; statements within reflect the period in which they were written and should be understood within that historical context rather than as contemporary guidance or opinion.