The Athenaeum, a weekly literary review, was founded by James Silk Buckingham in 1822. The journal was particularly successful under the editorship of Charles Wentworth Dilke (1830-1846). Contributors in the 19th century included Robert Browning, Thomas Carlyle and Charles Lamb.

John Middleton Murry became editor in 1919 and he published the work of Bertrand Russell, Aldous Huxley and Katherine Mansfield.

In 1921 The Athenaeum merged with the Nation and was finally absorbed by the New Statesman in 1931.