Under the imprint of Sports History Publishing, Chris Harte has just released his latest book, continuing a run of titles that look at men's magazines. Now, these aren't the men's magazines of my youth, but the earlier general interest magazines of the 1930s, beginning with Lilliput, continuing with Men Only and (to conclude?) with his next book on London Opinion.
These pocket books filled a gap in the market for a men's interest magazine. The editorial of the first issue (which debuted on 22 November 1935) remarked: "Until today every magazine published in this country has been produced with at least one eye on the woman reader. We, on the other hand, are not interested in women readers. We don't want women readers. We won't have women readers. There is not a single magazine or newspaper dealing fairly and squarely with masculine interests."
And what were those interests? Initially, the magazine featured articles only (no fiction), on sporting subjects, hunting, travel, flying, driving, and women, from 'Office Wives' to 'Why Don't Girls Leave Home'. The contents were truly diverse and included the likes of Karel Capek (author of R.U.R.) writing about 'How to Make a Lawn' and Louis Golding on the 'Wild Romance of London Streets'.
It was edited for eighteen years by Reginald Arkell and within a year was selling 800,000 copies a month. The contents soon introduced photographic studies and even female writers, but Arkell was nervous about his rivals Lilliput and Readers' Digest. He also had to cope with losing writers and staff to the war effort from 1939 on. For troop morale, some issues offered photographs of nudes by John Everard. The magazine had to slim down and increase its price as the paper shortage began to bite.
Complaints from readers that the magazine concentrated too heavily on service stories were addressed in 1944, coinciding with the release of Arkell's son from detention in Paris after four years in captivity.
Under Minney the magazine began to feature more entertainment features, more pro-British features about successful businesses and businessmen. At the same time, there were reprints of features and cartoons from American magazines like Esquire and Collier's. Men Only needed freshening up, or so said the board of directors, and it was redesigned in 1958, the illustrated covers replaced with photos, some colour pictures were introduced and editor Minney was eased out in favour of Cyril Kersh.
Behind the scenes changes, with Newnes taken over by Odhams and a merger with Lilliput, a change of printer, and another change of publisher as Odhams was absorbed into I.P.C., the vast magazine empire owned by Mirror Newspapers. Eventually I.P.C. closed the title, planning to relaunch it in a larger size with mostly pictures of women; chairman Cecil King did not want his company associated with such a publication and sold Men Only to the News of the World, who went on to sell it to Martspress and thence to Paul Raymond, who turned it into the quintessential men's magazine that I alluded to in the opening paragraph.
Chris Harte's introduction fills in many, many more details that the above sketch, and the book has his usual issue by issue listings of the magazine's contents, indexes of writers, illustrators and photographers, and books with content drawn from the magazine. There are also dozens of photographs of contributors and staff. At over 240 A4 pages, it's a hefty book on the famous pocket magazine and a worthy companion to his history of Lilliput.
The book is available from Dodman Books (sales@dodmanbooks.com) and should be available in all the usual places shortly.
Men Only Magazine 1935-1963 A History and Bibliography by Chris Harte
Sportin History Publishing ISBN 978-1898-01023-4, 2026, 243pp, £25.00.
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