Not to be confused with the defunct The Idler (d. 1911), Idler is a biannual magazine, notionally created 'idling', and inspired by a collection of essays by the eighteenth century writer Dr Johnson and informed by the heyday of 'slacker' culture of the early 1990s. Founded in 1993 by Tom Hodgkinson and Gavin Pretor-Pinney, Idler simultaneously educates and entertains its readers with interviews, articles and reviews. The magazine has undergone a number of incarnations and changes of ownership, early on enjoying patronage by the Guardian newspaper and then by Ebury publishing. Tom Hodgkinson published the magazine as an annual collection of essays until 2014, then relaunched the mag in 2016.
