Following his turn to journalism in 1862, Arnold produced two books, Essays in Criticism and Culture and Anarchy, which were to influence debates about literature and culture well into the twentieth century. In these books he strengthened his interpretation of modernity by turning his attention to modern literature and by developing his social and political views. The traces of this work can today be seen in the circulation of some of their well-known catchwords - ‘disinterestedness’, ‘the free play of the mind’, ‘Philistines’, ‘sweetness and light’, ‘the best ideas’ and ‘culture’. The first appearance of these books as separate essays in journals - often after they had been delivered as lectures - was typical of Arnold's publication from 1862. The different Essays in Criticism first came out in five different English journals (1863-64; 1865), and the six chapters of Culture and Anarchy initially appeared in instalments in the Cornhill Magazine (1867-68; 1869). The 1860s saw the growth of new journals that reached a large middle-class audience and Arnold's new role as a periodical journalist tells of his concern to achieve widespread influence. Other periodical essays that he had written were collected in A French Eton (1863-64; 1864) and in his book, On the Study of Celtic Literature (1866; 1867).

Both the Essays in Criticism and Culture and Anarchy maintain the importance of communication, and in Culture and Anarchy ‘the great men of culture’ are described as publicists - ‘those who have had a passion for diffusing, for making prevail, for carrying from one end of society to the other, the best knowledge, the best ideas of their time ‘ (V: 113). This much- quoted passage elaborates how these ‘great men of culture’ have laboured to make knowledge ‘efficient outside the clique of the cultivated and learned’ (V: 113) and here the word ‘efficient’ obviously connects this undertaking to Arnold's continuing educational work.