Reaching out to recent autodidacts, the Monthly Chronicle condemned annuals, newspaper taxes, and superficial art and literary criticism.

1. [Bulwer-Lytton, E. G. and Dionysius Lardner]. “Advertisement.” 1 (1838): v–vi.

Pledged that the Monthly Chronicle would not rival competitors because it would focus on topics usually considered of “too grave a nature for periodicals that rather contribute to the amusement of a peculiar class than represent the interests of the general community.” The Chronicle would publish articles on politics of interest to the middle classes and on the arts and science, criticism as a guide to reading, and some fiction.

2. [Bulwer-Lytton, E. G.]. “The Life and Writings of Scott.” 1 (1838): 202–19.

Review of Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, edited by J. G. Lockhart, repeated that Scott's anger about Edinburgh Review criticism of his work motivated him to support the Quarterly Review, intending to challenge the Edinburgh's authority and steal its profits. The Quarterly allegedly welcomed “cutting and severe sarcasm.”

3. [Bulwer-Lytton, E. G.]. “Lord Brougham.” 1 (1838): 249–58.

Briefly probed Henry Brougham's defense of a Durham newspaper editor prosecuted for libel.

4. [Bulwer-Lytton, E. G.] “Letters by an English Member of Parliament to M. De –, of the Chambre des Députés. No. 1: On Public Opinion.” 1 (1838): 337–47.

Insisted that “journals, as they have grown up into their present importance, address a wide range of miscellaneous readers,” primarily families and juveniles.