Birmingham Journal (eighteenth century)

Little is known of it as few records remain, but a single copy survives in the Library of Birmingham: Number 28, dated Monday May 21, 1733.

[2] The newspaper was published weekly (on Thursday) by local businessman and bookseller Thomas Warren from his house over the Swan Tavern in the High Street.

[3] Among its contributors was Samuel Johnson, whose work for the Journal while he was lodging with Warren in Birmingham in 1733 was his first original published writing.

[4] James Boswell wrote of this in his Life of Johnson: Mr. Warren was the first established bookseller in Birmingham, and was very attentive to Johnson, who he soon found could be of much service to him in his trade, by his knowledge of literature; and he even obtained the assistance of his pen in furnishing some numbers of a periodical Essay printed in the newspaper, of which Warren was proprietor.

After very diligent inquiry, I have not been able to recover those early specimens of that particular mode of writing by which Johnson afterwards so greatly distinguished himself.