In 1759, Lessing, Mendelssohn and Nicolai launch a journalistic project that brings a new tone to literary criticism. Nicolai recalls that “almost all” journals at that time were “frosty, shallow, partisan, full of compliments” (B 4, 1086); their own project was to take the openness of their conversations to the public: “Often, it has been said among us in jest: One should simply write the way we talk” (B 4, 1086). The Letters Concerning Recent Literature (Briefe, die neueste Literatur betreffend) were based on the principle of an unbiased exchange of ideas, such as had already characterised the Correspondence on Tragedy. They allowed themselves to “not be tied to a specific purpose”, to determine the beginning and end as they liked and to choose their subject at will (B 4, 1087). Above all, they did not take into account the prominence of the authors. In a letter to Frederick II (Mar 10, 1761), the lawyer Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi will accuse the authors of “treating the most famous scholars far and wide in the most impertinent and irresponsible manner” and “having no respect for either God or men” (as cited in GEL, 344–45). In particular, Lessing’s contributions, with their conciseness, elegance and sharpness, were perceived by contemporaries as symptoms of a new beginning. He appeared under the ciphers O. Fll. L. E. G. A. (research has identified these as an anagram for the Latin “flagello”, ‘I scourge’; cf. HBN, 252) and made polemics his creative principle. In the Hamburg Dramaturgy, he will advise the critical writer to start by “looking for someone with whom he can argue; in this manner he will gradually get into the subject matter, and the rest will sort itself out” (HD 70; B 6, 535).