About 1843

1843

1843 is a digital magazine of culture, ideas and long-form narrative journalism published in London by The Economist. Named after the year The Economist was founded, it is the weekly newspaper's sister publication: where The Economist analyses, 1843 tells stories. It features long-form narrative journalism as well as shorter reads and columns, written by The Economist's own journalists together with writers and photographers from around the world, and it reaches a global readership from its London base. Since May 2020 it has been a digital-only magazine, having spent thirteen years in print under two names — first as Intelligent Life, and from March 2016 as 1843.

The magazine carries the motto Stories of an Extraordinary World, and it is edited as a complement to its famous parent rather than a supplement to it. Its subject matter spans the arts, style, food and drink, cars, travel, technology, design and the people caught up in the larger events of the time. Unlike The Economist, which publishes without bylines, author names appear next to their articles in 1843 — a small but deliberate signal that this is the Economist Group's home for individual voices and reported storytelling.

Origins as Intelligent Life

The magazine began life as Intelligent Life. The Economist Group launched it in July 2004 as an upmarket lifestyle magazine appearing as an annual publication — initially a summer annual — covering, in the phrase used at its relaunch, the arts, style, food, wine, cars, travel and anything else under the sun, as long as it is interesting. The annual format tested whether the audience that read The Economist for politics and economics would also read the same publisher on culture and luxury.

The experiment succeeded. In September 2007 Intelligent Life was redesigned and relaunched as a quarterly publication — the date The Economist itself treats as the launch of its sister lifestyle magazine — and in August 2011 it became a bi-monthly, publishing six issues a year. Across those changes the editorial proposition stayed constant: intelligent writing about the good things in life and the ideas behind them, aimed at well-educated, affluent readers, and drawing on The Economist's network of correspondents for a global rather than purely British view of culture.

The 2016 relaunch as 1843

In March 2016 the Economist Group relaunched and rebranded Intelligent Life as 1843, named for the year The Economist was founded by James Wilson. The relaunch gave the magazine a new name, look and feel, and a strategy to operate as a global publication targeting well-educated, affluent readers around the world. The redesigned website went live on 9 March 2016 to coincide with the print issue carrying an April/May cover date reaching newsstands, and the magazine's app and social accounts made the same transition from the old name to the new.

The relaunch also widened the editorial territory. Coverage broadened beyond Europe to include America and Asia, and new sections were devoted to technology, food and drink, art, design, and body and mind. Since the March 2016 relaunch the magazine was edited by Rosie Blau, a former correspondent for The Economist, and it retained the six-issues-a-year rhythm of the late Intelligent Life period. The new title tied the young magazine directly to the parent brand's heritage: 1843 was not an arbitrary number but the founding date of one of the world's most recognisable newspapers.

Editorial approach: narrative, not analysis

The distinction at the heart of 1843 is between analysis and narrative. The Economist explains the world through argument and data; 1843 tells the stories of what goes on in the world through reported, long-form pieces — described on its own site as compelling long reads. Both publications cover similar subject matter, including politics, business, technology, war, migration and climate, but they do so in different ways, and the difference is the magazine's reason for existing.

That remit has practical consequences for the journalism. Because 1843 pieces are not simply responding to the news, they tend to have longer shelf lives than daily or weekly coverage, and in its digital era the magazine's stories are often promoted over the weekend, when readers are judged to have time to immerse themselves in long pieces. Editor Jonathan Beckman, discussing the title's life after print, summarised the internal bargain: the 1843 team is not under pressure to produce material that brings in enormous volumes of traffic, but under pressure to produce material that is really good — work intended, in his phrase, to win prizes.

Writers, photographers and bylines

1843 features contributions from The Economist's journalists as well as writers and photographers from around the world, with photography commissioned for its stories. The byline policy marks it out within the Economist Group: The Economist famously publishes anonymously, a tradition defended as giving the newspaper a collective voice, whereas in 1843 author names appear next to their articles. The change is more than cosmetic. Narrative journalism depends on a reporter's presence in the story — on scenes witnessed and journeys made — and a named author is part of how that kind of writing establishes trust.

The magazine was positioned from the start alongside the other great newspaper magazines of the English-speaking world. It is seen as a market competitor to the Wall Street Journal's WSJ. magazine and the Financial Times' FT Magazine — glossy, idea-rich titles attached to serious financial newspapers. That comparison defined 1843's ambition: to be the cultural and narrative counterpart of a globally respected news brand, just as its rivals were for theirs.

Sections and subject matter

The magazine's coverage grew from the original Intelligent Life territory — the arts, style, food, wine, cars and travel — into the broader brief established at the 2016 relaunch. Sections devoted to technology, food and drink, art, design, and body and mind sat alongside long narrative features on war, migration, business and politics told through individual lives. Shorter reads and columns complement the long-form centrepieces, giving each issue, and later the digital magazine, a mixture of depths.

The focus on what its publisher called the insights and predictions for the luxury landscape remained part of the mix, reflecting the affluent readership advertisers wanted to reach. But the 1843 that emerged after 2016 was never only a luxury title: its award-winning stories ranged across conflict, displacement and social change as readily as across restaurants and design. Holding those registers together — pleasure and seriousness in one magazine — was the editorial challenge the title set itself, and the range is what distinguishes it from a conventional lifestyle glossy.

Awards and recognition

1843 has won awards for its journalism from a wide range of British and international bodies. The list of honours recorded for the magazine includes awards from the British Society of Magazine Editors, the Association of Illustrators, the British Journalism Awards, the Foreign Press Association Media Awards, the Migration Media Awards, the Fortnum and Mason Food and Drink Awards and the Travel Media Awards. The spread of those bodies — covering magazine editing, illustration, general journalism, foreign reporting, migration coverage, food writing and travel writing — maps closely onto the magazine's editorial range.

Recognition continued after the move away from print. Press Gazette reporting on the digital-era magazine noted that 1843 was gaining more recognition than ever despite the closure of its print edition in 2020, and that its value to The Economist lay in adding to the all-round offering for subscribers rather than in chasing traffic. For a title whose editor described its remit as doing work that wins prizes, the continued flow of awards was the measurable return on that strategy.

The end of print in 2020

In May 2020 it was announced that 1843 would move to a digital-only format. The Economist Group stopped printing the magazine as part of a restructuring in which ninety jobs were cut across the group; the areas affected included events, client solutions and the group's marketing communications agency TVC, while the group's chief executive, editor-in-chief, leadership team and board took voluntary pay cuts. The shift to digital-only took effect from the August/September 2020 issue, which was made available to Economist subscribers with digital access.

The decision was not purely a pandemic emergency measure. The shift to digital had already been under discussion before Covid-19, but the pandemic's impact accelerated it — the same pattern seen across British magazine publishing in 2020, when newsstand sales and advertising were disrupted simultaneously. For 1843 the print edition had always been the smaller part of a brand built around a subscriber audience; ending print concentrated the magazine where its readers increasingly were, inside The Economist's website and app.

1843 as a digital magazine

Since 2020, 1843 continues to run as a section on The Economist's website and app, and it has become increasingly integrated within the parent brand while retaining its own editor, identity and remit. The magazine is published by The Economist Newspaper Limited for the Economist Group, is based in London, and keeps its global readership: its stories are read wherever The Economist's digital subscribers are, rather than where a print edition could be distributed.

The digital format changed the magazine's rhythm. A bi-monthly print title published set issues; a digital 1843 publishes stories continuously, with long reads promoted at weekends and older pieces retaining value because of their longer shelf life. The value of the magazine to the group is expressed in subscription terms: in Press Gazette's reporting of the group's figures, The Economist counted some 1.187 million total subscribers at the end of September in the year reported, with a strategic focus on subscription growth and digital innovation — the context in which a distinctive, prize-oriented long-form brand helps persuade readers to keep paying.

Place within The Economist Group

1843 is one of the Economist Group's longest-running experiments in extending a famous news brand beyond news. The group that founded The Economist in 1843 later built the Economist Intelligence Unit, founded in 1946, and a range of conferences, education and data businesses; the lifestyle magazine applied the same brand-extension logic to culture. A reader who trusted The Economist on finance was invited to trust its sister on food, design, travel and the human stories behind migration or war.

The magazine's history also tracks the wider economics of quality publishing. It began as an annual for affluent readers, grew into a quarterly and then a bi-monthly as advertising supported print, was rebranded to tie it more tightly to the parent title in 2016, and became digital-only in 2020 as the group's business centred on subscriptions. Each change of format followed the money while the editorial proposition — narrative journalism for curious, educated readers — stayed recognisably the same from Intelligent Life to 1843.

Legacy and continuing identity

1843's identity rests on a name that is also a date. By calling its culture magazine after the founding year of The Economist, the group made heritage itself the brand — a signal to readers that the storytelling inside carried the same standards as the newspaper founded in 1843. The magazine is still published under that name today as a digital title, with its own editor and its long-form remit intact, nearly two decades after Intelligent Life first appeared as a quarterly in 2007.

For directory purposes its key facts are simple and verifiable: 1843 is a London-based digital magazine in English, published by The Economist Newspaper Limited for the Economist Group, edited in its print relaunch era by Rosie Blau and in its digital era discussed by editor Jonathan Beckman, formerly a bi-monthly print magazine and digital-only since 2020, with its home on The Economist's website at economist.com/1843. Its motto, Stories of an Extraordinary World, continues to describe what it publishes — narrative accounts of the world its sister newspaper analyses.