James Melton's lucid and accessible study examines the rise of 'the public' in eighteenth-century Europe. A work of comparative synthesis focusing on England, France, and the German-speaking territories, this is the first book-length, critical reassessment of what the philosopher JÜrgen Habermas called the 'bourgeois public sphere' of the eighteenth century. Topics include the growing importance of public opinion in political life, transformations of the literary public realm, eighteenth-century authorship, theatre publics, and new practices of sociability as they developed in salons, coffeehouses, taverns and Masonic lodges.