Lilliput Magazine: A History and Bibliography

Chris Harte has published yet another huge volume dedicated to a single magazine, as he has done with various sports titles over the past few years. This latest, dedicated to a tiny magazine, clocks in at 362 A4 pages, and lists the contents of every issue and spin-off, along with indexes of authors, illustrators, photo-journalists, and an astonishing number of photos of authors, artists and editorial staff scattered throughout.

While the indexes may prove invaluable in years to come (as have those in Harte's The Captain which I've grabbed from the shelf on several occasions), the best part of the book is the 40-or-so-page introduction covering the history of Lilliput.

The story begins in Hungary when 13-year-old Istvan Reich buys a camera. A chance snap of a former foreign secretary was used in the Budapest weekly Erdekes Usag, and the young boy decides he wants to be a photo-journalist. During the Great War, Reich works with Sandor Kellner on the trade journal Szinhazi Elet—Kellner would later change his name to Alexander Korda, a huge name in the film industry. Reich also involves himself in films as a photographer, screenwriter and cameraman in Germany.

In 1923 he changes his name to Stefan Lorant and edits various German picture magazines. In 1933 Hitler comes to power and Lorant is arrested and held in jail for six months. Freed after months of effort by the Hungarian Consulate General, he is released, returns to Budapest but soon makes his way to Paris and then London.

There he becomes the founding editor of the influential Weekly Illustrated, but leaves after only five months, citing a lack of appreciation by management. While freelancing, he was introduced to Alison Hooper; a year later Lorant invited her to holiday with him in the south of France. There, with other refugees, the discussion turned to producing a pocket magazine along the lines of the American Coronet.

With financial backing from Alison (who under her maiden name of Blair was assistant editor) Lilliput became a reality, albeit a loss-maker until it established itself and began taking advertising. Before long, Lorant was able to sell the magazine to Hulton Press for £20,000. Hulton was able to grow the magazine's circulation even during the war, doubling from 250,000 in 1940 to 500,000 in 1947. Lorant also created Picture Post for Hulton, which was selling over a million copies by its third issue.

Lorant's personal life included a number of acknowledged and unacknowledged children. Alison had his daughter and, with her other two daughters, moved to America. Lorant was classified as an enemy alien and he, too, fled to America, where he remained the rest of his life.

Much of the introduction is dedicated to a survey of the history of the magazine, its contents and the problems Lorant faced behind the scenes from Edward Hulton, with whom he disagreed on many things. Tom Hopkinson took over as editor in 1940 with Kaye Webb his assistant editor. Its easy style and mix of articles, stories, photos and cartoons made it entertaining reading during the blackout and increasing sales offset the increased costs of wartime production. Big name writers from George Bernard Shaw to Ernest Hemingway contributed and the occasional nude helped sales along.

Richard Bennett became editor in 1946 and Kaye Webb was let go in 1947, the contents began to change; there was greater interference from Edward Hulton, who thought the paper was publishing too much from left wing writers. At the same time, fewer writers from across Europe were appearing, changing the tone and removing one of the magazine's unique aspects.

Bennett was replaced by Jack Hargreaves in 1951 and dropped many of its contributors in a desperate attempt to modernise. Hargreaves was promoted to managing editor within months, and Colin Willock briefly installed as editor. Sales continued to fall, and Hulton took the unusual move of trying to tempt Stefan Lorant back from the USA. Lorant, however, owed money to the taxman and decided to stay in America.

New editor Michael Middleton didn't last long; Lilliput was enlarged in size at the suggestion of advertising management and Willock returned with plans to reverse many changes made by his recent predecessors. Advertorials, puff pieces and, in 1955, photographic covers of models. Mark Boxer and William Richardson occupied the editorial chair, the latter drawing heavily on American reprints from Saturday Evening Post, Collier's and Playboy. Richardson was promoted out of harm's way in 1958, and the magazine given a makeover... and another makeover six months later, these masterminded by executive editor Willock and assistant editor Denis Pitts, who became editor in 1959.

Pitts made some bold choices as editor, but it was too late, and Lilliput was merged with Men Only in August 1960, after 277 issues.

This, of course, is a brief precis of Lilliput's history, which is much expanded upon by Chris Harte. Along with checklists, indexes and an absolutely astonishing number of photographs of Lilliput's contributors (I haven't counted how many, but there are pages of them!), this is the ultimate trip through the history of this fascinating magazine.

Lilliput Magazine: A History and Bibliography by Chris Harte
Sports History Publishing ISBN 978-189801018-0, 3 June 2024, 362pp, £29.95. Available via Amazon.

C.B. Fry's Magazine: A History, Index and Bibliography by Chris Harte

Fry's was named after... no, not the Turkish Delight but the famous cricketer, C. B. Fry — Charles Burgess Fry — who played cricket in preparatory school before Captaining the team at Repton School, was a blue at Wadham College, Oxford, and used his degree to get a teaching post at Charterhouse. At the same time he was able to earn an international cap playing football, set an amateur record for the long jump, and begin a sideline as a sporting journalist. Leaving Charterhouse, he took up first-class cricket and was picked to open the batting for England against the Australians.

Fry's connection as a writer to various of George Newnes's publications led to an offer to become athletics editor of The Captain. Newnes had the idea to launch a sporting paper and asked Fry to be its editor. Launched in April 1904, Fry soon established his control over the magazine, writing reports of cricket and football matches he played in and appearing in many of the adverts that featured, promoting everything from cocoa to horsehair friction gloves.

The magazine quickly established itself and the monthly issues were widely collected into bound volumes twice a year, although much of the magazine was discarded, even if they had features, so that the 856 pages of volume 5 became 576 in the bound volume. Complaints went unanswered.

Fry himself was prone to diatribes in his editorial columns, often having little to do with sports and involving (amongst other things) sending inner-city lads to Canada to work of farms, and the creation of 'baby farms'.

The paper included short stories and serials, but one serial that did not appear was co-written by Fry and his wife, 'A Mother's Son'; Fry began sneaking extracts from he novel into his magazine, much to the annoyance of Methuen, who were contracted to publish the book and owned the serial rights.

Fry used the pages of the magazine to vent his displeasure at many things and many people; that he was often busy elsewhere was useful to give his fellow staff a chance to concentrate on editing the paper. It did, however, lose much of its vigour without Fry at the helm.

Then George Newnes died and George Riddell took charge of the company and gave fry an ultimatum: concentrate solely on the magazine or leave. Fry quit and the magazine came to an end with its March 1911 issue... only to be relaunched six weeks later as The New Fry's Magazine. Unfortunately, by the fourth issue, the editorial was begging for contributions from readers. This led to a change in the contents by 1912: out went articles on rugby, football and cricket and in came features on cats, dogs and donkeys. By 1913, animal stories were proliferating while illustrations were all but dropped. Walter Burton-Baldry had his own particular obsession: golf. Before long the Fry's Magazine Cups were announced (well, the winners were announced but there had previously been no mention at all of any competition), and the new publisher was to produce Success at Golf in an edition of 10,000.

Fry's moved offices in 1913 "due to the recent rapid increase in the sales of Fry's Magazine and the growth of our advertising and publicity departments". The truth was that the magazine was seeking ways to raise finance because their publisher was about to drop them. Fry's went independent and the number of reprints increased as the magazine struggled to keep it's writers.

A surprise move was the return of C. B. Fry in 1914. The magazine's financial backer, Cuthbert Corbould-Ellis had been disappointed with the direction the paper was taking, although mollified by the success of Success at Golf, which was enjoying a second printing of 10,000 and about to go into a third.

Once again the magazine began covering a broader range of popular sports, but the end was already in sight. The September 1914 issue was its last.

Chris Harte's history offers a great deal more detail in his history of the magazine and more besides, including an issue-by-issue listing of contents for all 125 issues, and listings of writers and artist, each with a brief biographical sketch.

C.B. Fry's Magazine of Sports and Outdoor Life 1904-1914: A History, Index and Bibliography by Chris Harte.
Sports History Publishing ISBN 978-189801017-3, 2 January 2023, 290pp, £14.95. Limited to 100 numbered copies. Available via Amazon.

Comic Cuts — 18 February 2022

I'm ploughing on with the history of Action comic now that my scanning commitments are done. At the last count I'd just hit 46,750 words, all of them the right ones, but not necessarily in the right order.

I've reached the point in the story where Action has just returned in its horribly censored form, turned from the comic I loved for its no-holds-barred storylines into the kind of comic that had made me stop give up buying them two years earlier. I didn't want a typical boys adventure comic... I wanted something with better stories with a bit of realism to them, not the fantasy of winning a Grand Prix or a world heavyweight title. There was a reason I didn't read Tiger, and unless your pursuit of glory risked permanent blindness, I wasn't interested.

With little to report, I thought I'd mention a book that has come my way from the prolific Chris Harte, about the Victorian-era magazine, Fores's Sporting Notes & Sketches. Not my usual cup of tea, although I'm interested in the history of magazines (chiefly story papers) from that era, so the introduction makes interesting reading, as it covers some of the back story of the Fores family as printsellers, with Samuel William Fores dominating the trade alongside the likes of Hannah Humphrey and my near namesake William Holland (no relation as far as I know). Fores also held a huge exhibition of cartoons and prints in 1789.

It was Samuel's grandson, George Philip Byron Fores, who conceived the quarterly Fores's Sporting Notes & Sketches, the first issue dated April 1884. The early reviews were positive, noting the high class writing and excellent illustrations of George Finch-Mason. The magazine's success led to spin-off books in the 1890s, but it trundled along and celebrated its 100th issue in 1908. By this time Finch-Mason had become the mainstay of the magazine, writing under pen-names as well as illustrating; Fores was still the nominal editor, but by the time the magazine folded in 1912 he was in his eighties, and Finch-Mason's health began to give while he was in his sixties.

The book is chiefly a listing of contents of each issue and a name index, both heavily illustrated with examples of illustrations and photos of contributors. Harte has published a number of these volumes, neatly formatted and produced in limited numbers. If you have an interest in old magazines, especially sporting magazines, they're fascinating and with the distinct bonus of not being outrageously expensive to buy.

The book will be available via Amazon shortly (it's officially due out in a couple of weeks) or you can order it direct. Details below.

Fores's Sporting Notes & Sketches by Chris Harte
Sports History Publishing ISBN 978-189801016-6, 24 February 2022, 200pp, £9.95. Available via Amazon or directly from the author, price £10.00 including p&p. Make cheques payable to Chris Harte, Braemar House, St. David's Avenue, Carmarthen, SA31 3DN, Wales. The book is limited to 60 numbered copies.