This chapter explores the range of essayistic writing in nineteenth-century newspapers: leaders (political and topical in focus and the principal genre of the Victorian daily and weekly press), middles (a shorter version of the leader and characteristic of some weeklies), correspondence columns from journalists at home and abroad, and reviews of both books and theatre. It charts the expansion of the press at mid-century following the abolition of the ‘Taxes on Knowledge’ and an influx of literary talent that raised the quality of newspapers, and it notes the transformation of newspapers at the end of the century with the creation of literary pages, supplements, and special features (following the demise of many quarterly reviews and monthly magazines). The second half of the chapter examines the newspaper writing of John Stuart Mill, Charles Dickens, and George Eliot, and argues that each made a unique contribution to the newspapers of their day.