Sponsored by Unitarians and the precursor of the elder National Review, the Prospective situated the press in a variety of contexts.

1. [Thom, J. H.]. “Sydney Smith.” 1 (1845): 171–207.

Designated Smith as the first editor of the Edinburgh Review, 1802–03, and a contributor until 1829. Quoted him on the Review's impact.

2. “Benjamin Constant.” 1 (1845): 356–91.

Denominated Constant a “Newspaper Editor” because he launched the French Constitutionnel.

3. [Gallenga, Antonio]. “Italy, the Pope, and the Jesuits.” 3 (1847): 423–60.

Vetoed Vincenzo Gioberti's proposal for limited censorship in the face of official behavior in Italy. Tuscany, obeying an Austrian order, suppressed the Antologia, and Rome restricted its papers generally.

4. “David Copperfield, and Pendennis.” 7 (1851): 157–91.

Essay on the styles and themes of Charles Dickens and W. M. Thackeray thought that Thackeray undermined respect for periodicals in his Pendennis. He painted Pendennis as a man scribbling “trifles for annuals and magazines” or reviewing books “only half read, in a flippant presumptuous way in a weekly,” a character more dominant than Dickens' Warrington, an “honest” guide of opinion with “valuable facts and ideas” based on study.

5. [Beard, Charles]. “Uncle Tom's Cabin.” 8 (1852): 490–513.

Review of Harriet Beecher Stowe's book lamented that the “editor of a Free-soil paper” had recently been lynched, not surprising because public opinion was an effective censor of the press in the American South.