Windsor Magazine

The Windsor Magazine no.1

We end our little trip through some of the first issues of Victorian magazines with one of the most famous, The Windsor Magazine. Published by Ward, Lock & Bowden (later Ward, Lock & Co.), Windsor was launched in January 1895. It ran for 90 volumes, coming to a close after 537 issues in September 1939, another casualty of the beginning of World War II. I'm not quite sure how you would mark the eras of these magazines, but the Golden Age of story papers was almost certainly the five decades between 1891 and 1939, from the launch of The Strand to the end of Passing Show, Windsor and Pearson's. The was years were the dark ages, although 1940 did see the relaunch of The Argosy as a digest and digest magazines did flourish in the 1950s and 1960s—a Silver Age, perhaps? Like comics, the evolution seems to run in reverse: rather than stone, to bronze, to iron, which is an evolutionary development in the ages of mankind, ages for publications seem to decline from platinum, to gold, to silver, to bronze, to... what? Iron according to Ovid or Heroic according to Hesiod (and if you're wondering what the heck I'm on about, check Wikipedia). Heroic works pretty well for comics but are there enough professionally published popular fiction magazines in Britain for the noughties to even have an age?

Sorry to ramble... back to the subject in hand. The Windsor was designed as a popular home magazine, not as preachy as The Quiver or Good Words but something that wouldn't embarrass your drawing room...

A Foreword.

Without being as nervous as a débutante at a Drawing-Room, a new Magazine which presents itself at the Court of the British public may confess to a certain fascinating timidity. The young Magazine has to carry its own train (we resist the temptation to suggest that its train is carried by pages) with becoming diffidence, and yet with an assurance of substantial claims to favour.
__There are some periodicals, no doubt, which bounce into popularity by the power of mere flourish, just as a girl whose charms are of a somewhat bold type makes a masculine circle captive to an audacious freshness. We are old-fashioned enough to regard that kind of success with a distrustful eye. When the first flush of conquest is over, it does not wear well. The audacity remains, but the freshness goes off. Far more likely to endure is the less obtrusive beauty which steals into the manly heart by a postern gate, while its rival is flaunting a translient triumph on the battlements.
__In these days of adventurous womanhood, a certain beseeching coyness may be pronounced a little out of date; yet we have greater faith in it as a means of subjugation than in more ambitious pretensions. Behold, then, the Windsor Magazine making its obsisance to its Sovereign and to the public alike, mingling devotion to the gracious Lady on the throne and to her three direct heirs, whose portraits are here presented, with loyalty to some of the best and widest interests of her subject.
__Amongst those interests we do not class everything that ministers to a fermenting curiosity. The spurious novelty of one year is apt to be the neglected fossil of the next. Nothing ages so fast as the “new movement,” which takes no account of the silent forces of nature, and is gone while its proclamation of a revolution or the millennium is still in our ears. The butterfly, emerging from the chrysalis, probably thinks that a new heaven and a new earth have been created for its benefit, but whole epochs of butterflies witness no material change in the universe.
__To say that the New Woman is a butterfly would be to do some injustice to a mertorious insect, for the New Woman is apt to be unlovely, and to make her breif sogourn amongst us hideous with discordant cries. We do not propose to encourage her in the illusion that she is a permanent factor in social development, and is working victoriously for the regeneration of man by the equality of the sexes. The only service she renders to man is to provide him with cynical entertainment, while she fondly imagines that his natural supermacy is seriously in question.
__The true responsibilities of woman do not vary; they demand a deep and lasting respect which man is eager to accord; they assert in a considerable sphere an authority which he does not dispute; they are infinitely helpful to the race by virtue of an enlarged education which he does not grudge; but they cannot supersede the fundamental law which gives to him alone the arbitrament of the force that makes the basis of government. When the New Woman announces that she is the equal, if not the superior, of man, she overlooks the important though prosaic fact that in the last extremity he is the stranger animal. It is he and not she who, in the struggle for existence, which the most exhalted humanitarian cannot disguise, must be the chief bread-winner, who must bear the greatest physical strain, who must defend the country against invasion, who must decide the issues of peace and war.
__Many women, it is true, have to earn their own livelihood, and to acquire thought much suffering the needful self-reliance for independent toil; but the ordinance of nature still holds good, for few women will undertake this task when they can get men to do it for them—men whom they can rule through the affections, and bind with the tender ties of the family and the home.
__It is the home that the Windsor Magazine desire specially to appeal. This is not an original ambition. There are contemporaries which have long been labouring in the same vineyard. We wish them well; but if we may exercise the candour of a new-comer, we would suggest that their office in the vineyard is not always grateful to man and woman resting from labour, and yearning for some spiritual stimulus under the roof-tree or the fig-tree.
__There is no moral necessity for a home magazine to be tedious, to regale the wife with solemn precepts when she wants to be cheered, and the husband with domestic little tales which never touch the strong currents of life. There is a lamentable lack of humour in the notion that the minds of men and women can be improved, and their soulds comforted, by these obvious devices. The leisurely trail of the tract can be only too plainly discerned in literature of this kind. There is a lingering belief amongst its purveyors that sound principals of conduct are best nurtured on spoon-meat, and that nothing is so dangerous to the home as the intrusion of topics which stir the intelligence to issues more remote than the front door.
__This theory of the family hearth treats it as a sanctuary which is constantly threatened by prowling wolves in the shape of ideas from the outer world. To keep these more or less at bay, the family when abroad must suspend the faculty of observation altogether, and when at home must endeavour to obscure and stupefy it with improving legends which belong to any sphere except that of experience. The effects of this ostrich policy may be seen in the craving of many a boy for the pernicious trash which feeds a starved imagination on the wrong food. Just as the sheer dulness of a squalid life drives a man to poisonous alcohol, so the narrow doctrine of the domestic sanctuary begets to a young gancy the distorted passion for excitement. The glamour of the world, the great mysterious movement beyond the borders of the home, must hold a healthful sway over youthful dreams, or it will turn them to nightmare and disease.
__So the chief purpose of the Windsor Magazine is to illuminate the hearth with genial philosophy, to widen its outlook, to give it a reasonable attitude of inquiry towards the problems of the time, to make it crackle with the good humour which is born of true tolerance, and puts to flight the exaggerated self-consciousness of aggressive virtue.
__But the dominant note of this Magazine will be buoyant. We have no native affinity with megrims. From the literary and social standpoint, the microbe seems to us an overrated creature, and we take no aesthetic satisfaction in the tenth transmission of folly or corruption. Why should the hearth be sicklied o’er by those unheaalthy twins, Hysteria and Hypochondria?
__In our first number begins a serial story, “A Bid for Fortune,” by Mr. Guy Boothby, a writer who has given proof of his capacity to keep alight in fiction the camp-fires of adventure. Though despised of Mr. Howells, the adventure story has an abiding fascination for households in which nothing eventful ever happens, for the world is not yet so completely cured of marvels that every novelist is reduced to evolving analytic significance from the buttons of the heroine’s shoe!
__Another serial story which begins in this number is “The Gray Lady,” by Mr. Henry Seton Merriman. We have an unshaken faith in the capacity of the hearth to follow two serials without mixing them, as well as the short stories by Mr. Arthur Morrison, who will be reinforced later by that redoubtable enemy of gloom, Mr. Barry Pain. And if anyone can read Mr. Norman Gale’s lyrics without feeling in his blood the sunshine of the meadow and the sap of the orchard, he may be assured that the ravages of melancholy need heroic treatment. He had better study Mr. Frank Shorland, who will tell him that to the cyclist it is given to ride without black Care on the crupper.
__But the Windsor Magazine offers no monopoly to man. The hearth, on its feminine side, will take a serious interest in educational questions, and especially in a project which deeply concerns the welfare of women. We submit elsewhere the details of a Marriage Insurance scheme, the most important feature of which is the provision of dowries. British sentiment still hugs of convention that it ennobles a man to marry a portionless girl. On the stage the lover is offended by the mention of the heroine’s fortune. He reproaches her with it, and she weeps. “Were you but penniless,” he exclaims, “this cloud of misery would not be hanging over us. I want you, not your money-bags!” And she strives to soothe her wounded pride by wishing the filthy dross at the bottom of the sea. In the end he finds some decent pretext for consenting to undertake this burden of shame.
__The French marriage system is still the target for insular sarcasm, and we are bidden to ponder the instructive contrast between the sordid negotiations of the dot and the sublime conduct of the British idealist who weds the penniless orphan. In practice, however, the material consideration plays a conspicuous part in our overtures to Hymen. The Married Women’s Property Act is not the creation of sentimentalists, and for many women the social conditions make marriage without a dowry remote, if not impossible. Immortality was the prize of the benefactor who made two blades of grass grow where one grew before. To the same laurel aspired the enterprising editor who said that his journal would drop two lumps of sugar into the teacup of the charwoman who had thought that one lump was the maximum of temporal riches. What shall be our reward if our insurance scheme should waft half-a-dozen daughters on the way which only one or even none trod before, to the altar or the registry-office?
__For woman’s lighter fancies, there is, we trust, excellent provision. There are purloined sociologists who imagine that in some distant stage of development women will be content to wear an international costume which will never vary. They will then devote themselves to exalted labours instead of yielding to the distractions and temptations of dress. The black and white artist, foretold by Macaulay, may have an opportunity of sketching women in this aspect, together with the ruins of St. Paul’s. But on a reasonable computation of the time which it will take the Windsor Magazine to run its course—say, three centuries—we have no apprehension that our artists, whose pictorial devotion to woman will abundantly appear, will see her consigned to so forlorn a destiny.
__So the fashions will be treated and illustrated by most contemplated hands, and even man’s humble regard for his own adornment will not be forgotten. It is very well for Mr. Austin Dobson to reprove the “ladies of St. James’s” who “wear satin on their backs” and to express his preference for Phyllis, who

“Dons her russet gown,
And runs to gather May-dew
Before the world is down.”

We suspect that Phyllises who live in the country will get up early to sigh over some of our pictures. No sound philosophy of clothes discourages the reasonable longing of woman for a becoming array. It is a sentiment which we share so far as to regard the illustrations of the Windsor Magazine with all the pride of plumage which we hope will moult no feather.

This mixture of Victorian middle-class concerns and fiction may not have sounded a bundle of laughs but it was actually not as bad as it sounded: Guy Boothby's serial, for instance, introduced the character of Doctor Nikola and the editors had lured Arthur Morrison from The Strand to write new adventures of his character Martin Hewitt. The Christmas number reprinted Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet, which had introduced Sherlock Holmes to the world. It also reproduced a painting by Queen Victoria and, along with the title, there was always a thread that attached the magazine to the monarchy. The very first issue had advertised "A copy of the Historic Picture representing Four Generations of English Royalty,” which formed a frontispiece to the issue—a photograph of Her Majesty the Queen and the baby prince alongside the Princess of Wales and the Duchess of York.

Windsor Magazine did develop a rather more exciting character through its fiction as the years went on and published most of the leading authors of the day. If you want to explore the magazine further I recommend you pick up a copy of Mike Ashley's The Age of the Storytellers which covers a wide range of magazines from the 1880s to the 1950s, covering 70 in depth and with notes on 70 others.

Contents:

The Windsor Magazine [v1 #1, January 1895] (6d, xxiv+120pp, cover by Herbert Railton)
1 * Anon. * A Foreword * ed
4 * Boothby, Guy * A Bid for Fortune [Part 1 of ?] * sl; illus. Stanley L. Wood
17 * Gale, Norman * The Thankful Bird * pm
18 * Velvin, Ellen * Interview with Edna Lyall * iv
26 * [Misc. Material] * Portraits of Children of Notable People * ph
30 * Lowry, H. D. * Unknown London No.1—The Mysteries of Walworth Road * ar; illus. T. S. C. Crowther
37 * Martin, Mrs. Herbert * Is Love a Dream * ss; illus. O. Eckhardt
43 * Piatt, Mrs. Sarah * If He Should Die? * pm; illus. T. S. C. Crowther
44 * Cooney, Dr. J. E. * Should Children be Sent to Boarding Schools? * ar; illus. R. B. M. Paxton
49 * Morrison, Arthur * Chronicles of Martin Hewitt No.1—The Ivy Cottage Mystery * ss; illus. D. Murray-Smith
64 * [Misc. Material] * In Varying Moods No.1—Very Rational! * ct; illus. Jack B. Yeats
65 * [Misc. Material] * In Varying Moods No.2—A Hint from Dead-and-Gone Times * ct; illus. J. B. Clark
66 * [Misc. Material] * In Varying Moods No.3—Very Valuable! * ct; illus. Jack B. Yeats
67 * Eccles, Charlotte O’Conor * Great Marriage Insurance Scheme * ar
70 * ‘Brummel’ * The Philosophy of Men’s Clothes * ar; illus. Minnie E. Clarke
72 * [Misc. Material] * Pickings and Stealings * ms
73 * Miller, Fred * Romances of Rings * ar; illus. Fred Miller
79 * Humphry, Mrs. * Talks on Home Topics * ar; illus. Minnie E. Clarke
87 * Merriman, Henry Seton * The Grey Lady [Part 1 of ?] * sl; illus. A. Kemp Tebby
103 * Anon. * What Our Sisters Should Wear * ar; illus. St. Clair Simmons & Jessie Cauldwell
111 * White, Gleeson * At Five O’Clock * cl; illus. Alan Wright & Starr Wood
118 * Shorland, F. W. * Cycling as a Pursuit [Part 1 of ?] * ar

Victorian Magazine

(* A brief return to our series on first issues of Victorian magazines to wrap up the last two.)

The Victorian Magazine was published by Hutchinson & Co., Paternoster Square, E.C. It was rather boring in appearance and content with perhaps one exception, a piece by the “English opium eater” Thomas De Quincey, although it could also boast a serials by Mrs. Oliphant and Sarah Doudney.

Edited by A(lexander) B(alfour) Symington, it lasted only a year between December 1891 and November 1892, having been taken over by Marshall Brothers who merged it into Atlanta, with Symington becoming editor of the latter.

Contents:

The Victorian Magazine [#1, December 1891] (6d, 80pp, cover by ?)
3 * Oliphant, Mrs. * The Cuckoo in the Nest [Part 1 of ?] * sl; illus. G. H. Edwards
17 * Wilson, A. W. * Carnivorous Plants * ar; illus. W. A. P.
21 * Pauer, Ernest * On Musical Instruments and Music I—The Pianoforte and its Influence upon the Musical Art * ar
25 * Mayo, Isabella Fyvie * Hobbies * ar
30 * De Quincey, Thomas * Lessons of the French Revolution: Woman’s Relation to Them * ar
32 * Church, Professor * The Story of Demoleon and Artystone * ar
37 * Leland, Charles G. * Folk Lore * ar
40 * Paton, Sir Noel * St. Anthony of Coma * pm
40 * Tytler, Sarah * Famous French Women: Victims of the French Revolution I—Marie Antoinette * ar
45 * Page, H. A. * Character Sketches and Village Life I—The Yohannies * ar
49 * Brotherton, Mary * “Give It to Him”: An incident of the Franco-Prussian War * pm
50 * Doudney, Sarah * Through Pain to Peace [Part 1 of ?] * sl; illus. G. H. Edwards
63 * Cumming, C. F. Gordon * Kandy: The Mountain Capital of Ceylon * ar
68 * Macleod, Jessie * An Echo of Tradition * ss
73 * Taylor, Benjamin * Weather Wisdom * ar
77 * Brotherton, Mrs. * My Landlady’s Ghost Story * ss
79 * Barratt, W. Augustus * “If I Walk in Autumn Ev’n” * sg

Temple Magazine

The Temple Magazine v.1 no.1

I wonder if anybody can account for ideas? They seem to float about like thistledown in autumn winds, and to drop anywhere at haphazard. Whether they take root or not depends on many circumstances. It would be almost impossible to explain the genesis of The Temple Magazine. I do not know when the idea first suggested itself. I know it grew very slowly at first, and has taken many months to ripen. It is quite true that there seems almost a surfeit of magazines in the field, but it is also true that no other new venture is on precisely the same lines. This is intended as a magazine for the home, the church, and the school—a magazine that may be read on the Sunday and week-day alike, and will be of interest to all classes and demoninations. It will not be narrow or sectarian or goody-goody. It will be broad, tolerant, strong and devout. Nothing will be admitted to its pages that could offend the moral sensibilities of anyone. It shall be healthy and helpful and entertaining from the first page to the last.
__This is said in no spirit of boasting. The services of the best and most healthy writers of the day have been secured, and their ripest work will appear from month to month. If money and brains can ensure success, The Temple Magazine will stand in the forefront. We do not pretend that the present number is the best that can be produced. Everyone who has the smallest acquaintance with journalism knows that in the production of a new magazine legions of initial difficulties have to be overcome. The launching of a new magazine is like the launching of a new vessel. A thousand things have to be done that will not need doing a second time. When the barque is once afloat, the voyages can be run with comparative ease.From time to time new features will be introduced that will make The Temple Magazine still more attractive. But we are not without hope that the present number will give satisfaction to everyone who knows how to appreciate a good article, and will be a sufficient guarantee of what is to come. The special features deserve more than a passing word. The series of Illustrated Life Stories should be prove of exceptional interest. They are not mere interviews; they are much more than that. They are terse, vivid, and up-to-date biographies; giving in the smallest reasonable compass all the salient features in the lives of the individuals named. The name of Mrs. Tooley will be sufficient guarantee of the character of the workmanship as well as of the accuracy of the details. In every case her information will be first-hand, special facilities having been granted her for this series of Life Stories. This is true also of the series of articles under the head of “Churches That Live and Move.” In each case a special visit will be paid by a representative of The Temple Magazine, who will thus write from actual observation, and only such information will be inserted as likely to be of general interest.
__I think it a happy circumstance that the services of Dr. Parker have been secured for what may be regarded as the strictly religious portion of the magazine. Month by month in “The Home Service” he will give us the best of his heart and brain. And all who have felt the reverance of prayer, and caught glimpses of the deeper meanings of God’s truth, will be thankful for those practical, profound, and deeply spiritual expositions.
__We are quite anticipating also that “The Temple Parliament” will awaken more than a passing interest. The subjects that may be discussed are almost numberless; nor need they all be of a serious order. Subjects gay as well as grave may find a place. And since each writer will look at the matter under discussion from his own standpoint, the diversity of opinions expressed should not only be exceedingly entertaining, but highly instructive. That “The Home Department,” under the able editorship of “Phyllis Browne,” will be of great value goes without saying. Nothing of interest to mothers and daughters, and housewives generally, but will have a place in this department, and may have the fullest discussion.

Published by Horace J. Marshall & Son, Temple House, Temple Avenue, E.C., Temple Magazine was the brainchild of Silas K. Hocking and published (according to the cover) in a first edition of 100,000 copies.

The Gambling Curse was the subject of the first Temple Parliament, with brief contributions by W. E. Gladstone, Rev. T. Vincent Tymms, Hon. and Rev. E. Lyttelton, Dr. R. F. Horton, John Hawke (secretary of the Anti-Gambling League) and Frederick A. Atkins (founder of the League). Atkins, it would seem, was the actual editor of the paper rather than Hocking (this according to Mike Ashley's The Age of the Storytellers. Atkins was also editor of other magazines for Horace Marshall, including The Young Man and Young Woman.

The second issue was set to include a new stories by Gilbert Parker (‘A Worker In Stone’), Jean Barlow (‘M’Neill’s Tiger-Sheep’), Mary A. Dickens (‘Not In Vain’) plus articles by Mrs. S. A. Tooley (‘Life Story of Hugh Price Hughes’) plus a lively discussion on the topic of “Should Sensible Women Follow the Fashions?”.

Temple Magazine ran for a total of 84 issues, coming to an end with the September 1903 issue.

Contents:

The Temple Magazine [v1 #1, October 1896] (6d, 80pp, cover by ?)
1 * Couch, A. T. Quiller * The Lady of the Red Admirals * ss; illus. Chris Hammond
7 * Tooley, Sarah A. * The Life Story of Dean Farrar * ar
18 * Gould, S. Baring * From Death to Life * ss; illus. Sydney Cowell
25 * Maclaren, Ian * A Right Appreciation of Riches * ar
28 * Hocking, Silas K. * In Spite of Fate [Part 1 of ?] * sl; illus. Florence Reason
41 * Porritt, Arthur * Churches That Live and Move I—Union Chapel, Manchester * ar
47 * Carey, Rosa Nouchette * Sir Galahad * ss; illus. Arthur Twidle
53 * Gale, Norman * Autumnal Beauty * pm; illus. Thos. Greenhalgh
54 * Haweis, Rev. H. R. * Marie Corelli As I Knew Her * ar
57 * Leslie, Marion * Round and About Sadringham * ar
65 * [Misc. Material] * Preachers in Their Pulpits I—Canon Scott Holland at St. Paul’s * il; illus. Will Morgan
66 * Parker, Joseph * The Home Service * ar
70 * Hocking, Silas K. * Round the Study Fire * ed
74 * Browne, Phyllis * Our Home Department * ms
78 * [Misc. Material] * The Temple Parliament * ms

The Search Light

The Search Light no.1

Edited by C. Arthur Pearson and introduced thus:

With the Editor’s Compliments

A few words with regard to the purpose of this magazine will not, I hope, be considered out of place. Its conception was the result of a conversation between myself and a well-known journalist, in the course of which he said :—
__“The ephemeral nature of journalistic work is its most discouraging feature. To-day I write a newspaper article which I know embodies some of my best writing. By to-morrow it has gone. Like the May-fly, it has lived but a few hours, whereas it was just as worthy of preservation as other matter from my pen, which is kept by thousands in the permanent form of bound volumes.
__His complaint was very just. A great deal of the most interesting literary work of the day appears in the newspapers, to suffer premature cremation between the bars of the grate, or to serve as a wrapper for cheese and candies.
__It will be the object of the Search Light to embody in more permanent form a monthly selection of such matter—to lay before its readers stories and articles that everone would like to read, if only they knew where to find them. The selection will be one which no individual could make, for it will embody the work of a score of persons, and will embrace material from journals published in every part of the civilised world.
__The sketches of prominent men and women among those who are making the papers of the world will be continued from month to month.
__To write more would be superfluous. Those who read these words will read the magazine, with the results, I trust, that they consider its publication justified by its merits.

A brief editorial piece on page 64 notes that “The preliminary issue of No.1 of this magazine is of 100,000 copies, each one accompanied by a coloured plate. As we go to press there is every indication of a demand largely exceeding this number. Should these indications develop into fact, a re-issue of the magazine must be without th plate, for owing to the number of printings in this it would be impossible to provide a further supply in less than three weeks, by which time No.2 would be coming before the public.”

Some of the material is cringingly racist: although sources were not given, one piece—“The Unsophisticated Nigger”—was noted as coming from The Anti-Jacobin which had just folded. “Had The Anti-Jacobin contained more matter similar to ‘The Unsophisticated Nigger’, its fate would probably have been different; but its contents were of too heavy and uninteresting a nature for the general reader.” The Anti-Jacobin was the product of Frederick Greenwood, previously associated with Cornhill, Pall Mall Gazette and St. James’s Magazine.

Some of the (usually anonymous) short stories that appeared in Search Light were translations from European magazines. This was an early publication of C. Arthur Pearson, who would before long launch Pearson's Magazine which was to be one of the most successful monthlies of the the era. Search Light was not such a success and lasted only four volumes, from March 1892 to September 1894, a total of 31 issues plus a Christmas Special for 1892.

Contents:

The Search Light [v1 #1, March 1892] (3d, 64pp+ads, cover by ?)
Includes a monochrome plate by F. Calvert
1 * Anon. [Pearson, C. Arthur] * With the Editor’s Compliments * ed
2 * Anon. * Concerning Celebrities * ar
12 * [Misc. Material] * A Page of Verse * ms
13 * Anon. * Barnaby’s Offering * ss
15 * Anon. * What is Found on a Japanese Bill of Fare * ar
16 * Anon. * Birds That Build Mountains * ar
17 * Anon. * The Atlantic Record * ar
18 * Anon. * Was Christopher Columbus a Frenchman? * ar
19 * Anon. * Contempt of Court * ar
20 * Anon. * How to Make Pearls * ar
21 * Anon. * Bees as Errand Boys * ar
22 * Anon. * Green Pinks * ar
23 * Anon. * A Million Spinsters and What To Do With Them * ar
23 * Anon. * An Earlier Bird * ss
28 * Anon. * A World of Watches * ar
29 * Anon. * La Couvade—The Pangs of Paternity * ar
30 * Anon. * The Soldiers of Mercy * ar
31 * Anon. * The Paris Stock Exchange * ar
32 * Anon. * Burmese Boxing * ar
33 * [Misc. Material] * A Page of Verse * ms
34 * [Misc. Material] * Questions Worth Discussing * ms
38 * Anon. * A Desert Duel * ss
39 * Anon. * The Shattered Masterpiece * ss
41 * Anon. * The Truest Socialists * ar

The Royal Magazine

The Royal Magazine no.1

Launched by C. Arthur Pearson on October 14th, 1898, the first issue dated November 1898. Issued in a buff cover with a two colour (pink and black) photograph engraved by Swain of a young girl designed by Lallie Garet Charles. (In the above picture the magazine was so rust- and otherwise stained that I bleached out the colour. The photograph had survived surprisingly well.)

The Royal followed in the footsteps of Harmsworth's Magazine in being priced 3d. rather than the usual 6d. for a monthly. C. Arthur Pearson, the publisher made much of the need for a huge circulation--a million copies--that would be required to keep such a cheap magazine afloat, although Mike Ashley has pointed out (The Age of the Storytellers) that it is unlikely that the magazine ever achieved anything near a million copies. A more likely circulation was between 150,000 and 250,000, the latter figure for special Christmas issues.

Here is Pearson's first editorial:

It is customary with all new publications for the editor to offer an apology or explanation for coming into existence. We shall make neither the one nor the other. The Royal Magazine will be original in all things. This page, therefore, being at his disposal, the editor proposes to moralise as follows:—
A Million Copies! It does not seem anything very wonderful as the eyes glance about that one is apt to fancy that it is easy to have a just appreciation of what a million really is. Nevertheless, a million copies of The Royal Magazine means more than most people would think.
It takes 65 machines 24 days to print it. If one machine had to do the entire printing and worked continuously night and day it would take 521 days. The binding alone affords occupation for 750 hands. No single firm could undertake so large a task to be completed with the necessary speed.
Setting aside all questions of the labour involved in designing and comlpeting the Magazine, in printing and binding and distributing it, let us now try and gauge the bulk of a million copies
In the first place, they weigh almost exactly 300 tons.
Laid flat on top of the other the million copies would form a slender column rising exactly 4 miles and 1640 yards into the air. That is practically to a height equal to that of Mount Everest.
Placed end to end we would have a “thin buff line” 149 miles 1640 yards in length—a line in fact that would extend from the publishing office some ten of fifteen miles beyond Bristol, or almost to Sheffield.
Or if it were to decide to enclose St. Paul’s in a wall as high as the cross at the top of the dome, one million copies would suffice with due allowance for means of entering.
If, before the magazines were stitched together, the loose pages and covers were laid on the ground, they would cover an are of almost exactly 571 acres.
The area of St. Paul’s is approximately 78,125 square feet. Five times would amount to 390,675 square feet, and yet the first edition of The Royal Magazine would page the lot with copies placed side by side, and would leave sufficient over to stretch, if laid in single file and end to end, a distance of over thirteen miles from the Cathedral.

Despite the magazine never achieving a million sales, it was a success and would run for 491 issues in total. After 385 issues, it was revamped (December 1930) as The New Royal Magazine; in May 1932 it became The Royal Pictorial before switching tack completely. In January 1935 it became a film magazine under the title The Royal Screen Pictorial, followed a few months later by the dropping of 'The Royal' when it became Screen Pictorial in July 1935. It was an early war casualty, the last issue dated September 1939.

Contents:

The Royal Magazine [#1 v1, November 1898] (3d, 96pp, cover: photo)
3 * Draycott, Kirby * And Crock Face of Schaumburg * ss; illus. V. Christie
10 * Walker, Geo. M. * The Art of the Camera * ar
20 * Florence, Walter * Where Sacred Relics May Be Found * ar; illus. W. Wallis Mills
28 * Rudd, Percy * The Brown Frock * ss; illus. C. Michel
37 * [Misc. Material] * Some People and Their Parents * ph
40 * Ray, Charles * Strange Fates of Some Noted Buildings * ar; illus. Geo. H. Edwards
47 * Marchmont, A. W. * Aeolf, the Martyr * ss; illus. A. L. Bowley
52 * Nauen, Etta * The Laziest People on Earth * ar
56 * Anon. * A Chapeaugraphic Artist * ar
60 * Marshall, Archibald * Elijach P. Jopp and the Dragon * ss; illus. Tom Browne
67 * Denison, Jeffery * After the Accident! The Risks We Run * ar
73 * Anon. * Snapshot Interviews: George R. Sims * iv
76 * Hampton, Evelyn * The Coachman’s Daughter * ss; illus. Lewis Baumer
84 * Harding, Geoffrey * What a Dog Can Do * ar
86 * Stevens, Lewis * Swimming on Dry Land * ar
90 * Anon. * The Curiosity Shop * ms
91 * Wainwright, Caley * After Dinner Carpentering * ar; illus. A. McNeill Barbour
96 * Anon. * One Million Copies! What it Means * ar; illus. J. S. S.

Pearson's Magazine

Pearson’s Magazine No.1

Not many publishers would admit to some dissatisfaction with their new publication, but C. Arthur Pearson took that risk in his opening editorial for Pearson's Magazine. "There seem to us to be several ways in which future issues can be made of considerably more literary and artistic merit," he said... and it would be true to say that he succeeded as the magazine improved rapidly and found a ready audience who would see it through 527 issues, the magazine eventually folding in November 1939 because of the war.

In his editorial, Pearson spent most of his time stressing how much money had been spent in putting the magazine together and attacking the "discount system" whereby some monthly magazines priced at 6d were made available for 4½d. Here is what Pearson had to say about his new publication:

No large sums have been spent in heralding the advent of Pearson’s Magazine by advertisement. The money which might have been spent in this way has gone into the Magazine itself.
At the same time, we have caused statements to be circulated to the effect that the Magazine was to be of unusual excellence.
It is for you, who hold this copy in your hands, to decide whether in saying this we have gone beyond the mark, and to show your condemnation or appreciation by your future action, both as regards subscribing to the Magazine and commending it to the attention of your friends.
If it is not the best sixpennyworth that has been hitherto produced, it will be a failure, for unless it immediately attains, and succeeds in keeping, a colossal circulation, the enormous sum spent in producing each issue cannot possibly be justified.
Writing this with the proofs of No.1 before us, we have to confess that we are not, by any means, satisfied that the highest point has been reached. There seem to us to be several ways in which future issues can be made of considerably more literary and artistic merit, and these will not be neglected.
Succeeding numbers will, we can safely assert, surpass this first essay in both interest and appearance. Below are given brief particulars regarding the literary and artistic contents of some of the eaerly succeeding numbers.
A word now on the price of Pearson’s Magazine. It is sixpence, and the possession of a copy must imply the disbursement of the little silver coin with this name—not of four pennies and a halfpenny. No penny paper can be obtained for three farthings. No sixpenny illustrated weekly journal is sold to the public for 4½d. Why, then, should a sixpenny publication be issued with this disadvantage simply because it is published at intervals of a month? And why should the reader in a large town be able to buy for 4½d. an article for which the reader in the country must pay sixpence?
The discount system is bad for both publisher and newsvendor. It remains to be proved whether it has taken so firm a hold that this attempt to combat it proves unsuccessful. We may say at once that if it does, Pearson’s Magazine will cease to exist, for it cannot be produced to sell at 4½d.
At the same time, the trader who disposes of a copy for 6d, is making more money out of it than he is when he sells a copy of any other magazine for 4½d.
Our remarks upon this point may seem of undue prolixity, but the discount system has obtained so general a vogue that it is thought advisable to dwell at some length upon it.
In conclusion, we beg all those who are in any way interested in the appearance of this Magazine to let us hear from them as to the opinion they have formed of its merits. Suggestions will be most carefully considered, for it is only by pleasing our supporters that we can hope to make Pearson’s Magazine a permanent success.

For issue two, Pearson promised stories by Mr. S. R. Crockett, Mr. Bloundelle-Burton, another ‘Secret of the Courts of Europe’, another play, and more ‘Wisdom Let Loose’. Future issues would include stories by Marie Corelli, Stanley J. Weyman, Rudyard Kipling, Ian Maclaren, Gilbert Parker, Robert Barr, Cutliffe Hyne, George Griffith and “in fact, all the most prominent writers of fiction of the day.”

Mike Ashley has asserted that the magazine owed much of its success to three authors: C. J. Cutcliffe-Hyne, George Griffith and H. G. Wells. Pearson's published Cutcliffe-Hyne's Captain Kettle stories, one of the most popular characters of the era although nowadays almost forgotten, and the fantasy serial 'The Lost Continent' (1899). Both Griffith and Wells penned science fiction yarns for Pearson's, notably 'Stories of Other Worlds' by Griffith (1900) and 'The War of the Worlds' by Wells (1897), and the magazine also featured many articles on scientific progress.

If you want to learn more about Pearson's Magazine (and many of the other magazines I've featured in this little series—and I've not run out of first issues yet), I'd recommend you pick up a copy of Mike Ashley's The Age of the Storytellers, which has essays on 70 of the major fiction magazines that appeared before the Second World War plus a round-up of 70 others.

Contents:

Pearson’s Magazine [#1 v1, January 1896] (6d, cover: photo)
3 * Anon. * Artists and Their Work * ar
14 * Forbes, Archibald * The Bravest Deed I Ever Saw. How Lord William Beresford Won the V.C. * ar; illus. R. Caton Woodville
19 * Hope, Anthony * The Vigil of Count Amadeo * ss; illus. R. Sauber
35 * Anon. * In the Public Eye * ar
42 * Gale, Norman * Waiting for Summer * pm; illus. Anthony Fox
43 * W., A. * First Attempts at Photography *
45 * Upward, Allen * Secrets of the Courts of Europe No.1—A Stolen King * ss; illus. Hal Hurst
57 * Gordon, W. J. * What It Costs to Work a Railway * ar
64 * Harte, Bret * A Convert of the Mission * ss; illus. A. Forestier
78 * Sullivan, J. F. * The Great Water Joke * pm; illus. J. F. Sullivan
83 * Brand, J. * A Colonial King * ar
88 * Barr, Robert * A Dramatic Point * ss; illus. G. G. Manton
96 * Pain, Barry * Five Act Tragedies * pm; illus. J. F. Sullivan
97 * Alden, W. L. * Wisdom Let Loose * ar; illus. Charles May
102 * Besant, Sir Walter & Pollock, W. H. * The Voice of Love * pl; illus. Miss Chris Hammond
112 * Pearson, C. Arthur * The Editorial Mind * ed

The Novel Magazine

The Novel Magazine No.1

YOUR FOURPENCE RETURNED

I think I have hit upon an absolutely NOVEL idea in advertising nad it comes very appropriately into use in advertising the first issue of THE NOVEL MAGAZINE. You will have seen our front cover, and you will have read thereon that you can, if you wish, get back again the fourpence you have spent in purchasing this copy.
I have made this offer with the thought of the money it may cost; it will run into thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of pounds, but I do not mind. The more the merrier! For I know that for every fourpence that I return I have gained a reader of THE NOVEL MAGAZINE, and I am willing all the time to buy readers at fourpence each. They are cheap at the price.
To get Readers is the main difficulty in starting a new periodical, You may spend £20,000 in advertising on the hoardings, and in other ways, but you are never quite sure how many new readers you will get by so doing. But if I have to spend £20,000 on this present scheme, I shall know for a certain that over a million persons have bought the first number of THE NOVEL MAGAZINE.
And now having explained to you how I am advertising this Magazine, I must tell you its salient features. Needless to say I should not be prepared to risk £20,000 unless I were quite sure that I had something to offer you which I am convinced you want.
What is THE NOVEL MAGAZINE?
Briefly, it is a Magazine entirely devoted to Stories. Fiction is the backbone of most Magazines; THE NOVEL MAGAZINE is all backbone. For fourpence you will be able in future to obtain a Magazine containing the best stories that money can buy, or that my staff of sub-editors can unearth from the thousand and one sources at their disposal.
To give variety to the contents you will find some half-a-dozen entirely novel features—"Books in Brief," "Half-Minute Stories,” "A Story in Verse," "Cupid in Fiction," "Pinafore Pages"—all of which I hope you will like.
I want you to read THE NOVEL MAGAZINE carefully through from beginning to end—it will take you longer than you think, but it is all good, easy reading—and then I want you to like it: and I want you to be unselfish, too, and instead of keeping a good think to yourself, tell all your friends about it. THE NOVEL MAGAZINE is the biggest Magazine for its price, and contains more, and, I hope, better, stories than any other. It isn’t illustrated, as you will see; the money we have saved in this direction has been put into the letterpress, so that you may have better stories and more of them.

The Novel Magazine was indeed novel: the first all-fiction British pulp magazine. Published by C. Arthur Pearson, it appeared two months after George Newnes' The Grand Magazine, but the latter only switched to all-fiction at a later date.

The title referred to novel stories rather than novel-length stories. The magazine certainly had some fine authors contributing to the first issue, including Rafael Sabatini (the first instalment of his novel, Bardelys the Magnificent), C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne (a reprint in the 'My Best Story' series, although the editor admitted that Cutcliffe Hyne had written better yarns!), Anton Tchekhoff (the first in a series of 'Masterpieces of Foreign Fiction') and a second serial, 'The Pillar of Light' by Louis Tracy, amongst others.

The magazine was a great success for Pearson and eventually ran for 393 issues, coming to an end in December 1937. According to Mike Ashley, its golden era was 1912-22 when it was edited by E. C. Vivian (bar a spell when he was serving during World War I). Later issues were edited by Nell Kennedy who dropped adventure and uncanny stories in favour of romance. The paper eventually merged with its great rival, The Grand.

Mike has an excellent essay on the magazine which goes into far greater detail about its history and contents in his book The Age of the Storytellers, which I highly recommend.

The New Penny Magazine

From the opening editorial:

A Few Words About Ourselves

With the publication of The New Penny Magazine we may claim to have touched the high-water mark in cheap popular periodical literature. Never before has such a collection of valuable material, both literary and pictorial, been offered at so low a price. Much has been done in recent years to cheapen our periodical literature. We can say with confidence that The New Penny Magazine in the matter of cheapness excels any other publication of the day.
It is our desire that it should be equally conspicious so far as the excellence of its contents, and the beauty and variety of its illustrations are concerned. We aim at making it not only the cheapest but the best popular Magazine of its class.
The pioneer of the cheap periodical Press was the Penny Magazine originated by Charles Knight and dear to the reading public in the days of our fathers. Mr. Knight’s publication has been dead for more than a generation. In issuing The New Penny Magazine, we are seeking to adapt to the tastes and requirements of the present day the idea which Mr. Knight embodied in his great publication. We propose to supply week by week a magazine fully equal in quality of its contents to any of the popular monthly magazines now published. In price it will be ONE PENNY, as against the sixpence ordinarily charged for the monthly magazine; whilst the quantity of reading matter and the number of illustrations will be fully one-half of those given in publications costing six or even twelve times as much.
We must leave The New Penny Magazine to speak for itself. Its readers will find themselves in possession of a treasure-house of literature old and new, both solid and entertaining.
Articles of exceptional interest, stories of adventure, thrilling records of gallant deeds, vivid pages from history, anecdotal accounts of novelties, curiosities, and famous personages, and graphic descriptions of Nature’s most wonderful scenes, will find a place in our pages. Each number will also contain one or two short complete stories and a serial tale by the best writers. Some of the richest gems of recent years will be found side by side with the masterpieces of the present day; and the whole will be embellished by illustrations from the pen, pencil or brush of the leading masters of black and white art.
Excellence will be our guiding principle, and the high standard which we set before ourselves will be steadily maintained, our intention being to secure for The New Penny Magazine the proud position of being the best and cheapest magazine that has ever been produced.

Published by Cassell & Company Ltd., London, Paris, New York & Melbourne, La Belle Sauvage, London, E.C.

Although it boasted about its desire to be the best pennyworth available the content was anonymous and fairly undistinguished. In this issue, the “Novelist’s Neighbours” were those of the late Robert Louis Stephenson in Samoa. Frank Barrett, the one named author, was also the author of ‘Olga’s Crime’, ‘Fettered For Life’, etc. Barrett was also a contributor to Cassell's Magazine and a writer of 'sensational' novels in the days when novels were published in three volumes but, beyond his dates (1848-1926), I know very little about him. I shall have to do some digging.

Contents:

The New Penny Magazine [#1, October 22, 1898] (1d, 60pp, cover by ?)
1 * Anon. * A Few Words About Ourselves * ed
2 * Anon. * A Novelist’s Neighbours * ar
6 * Anon. * Hard Pressed * ss
9 * Anon. * Nelson’s Day: October 21st, 1805 * ar
16 * Anon. * The Giant Cuttle-Fish of Fiction * ar
19 * Anon. * A Day’s Work in Queensland * ar
23 * [Comic Strip] * The Valorous Negro * cs; illus. A. H.
24 * Anon. * "As Others See Us" * ar
26 * Anon. * Touch and Go: A Midshipman’s Story * ss
31 * Anon. * In Lavender Land * ar
35 * Anon. * A Tragedy of the Peninsular War * ar; illus. Gordon Browne
37 * Anon. * Curious Spouting Rocks * ar
38 * Barrett, Frank * Out of the Jaws of Death [Part 1 of ?] * sl
44 * Anon. * A Welcome Inundation: The Annual Rise of the Nile * ar
49 * [Misc. Material] * Curiosities * ms
50 * Anon. * A Mysterious Affair * ss
56 * Anon. * "Going to the South Pole" * ar
60 * [Misc. Material] * Fun and Fancy * jo

Lazy Land

Lazy Land, 1st monthly part

Lazy Land, confusingly subtitled in the picture above "A Monthly Magazine for Men and Women", was a penny weekly also published in monthly parts. The first monthly part at least was priced 3d, although that may have been a loss-leader for the first number only. It was Printed by Sully & Ford, 1 & 30 Plough-court, Fetter-lane, E.C. and published by W. Lucas, at the Office, 158 Fleet-street, London, E.C.

It was edited by Thomas Harrison Roberts who was responsible for many publications over a period of many years, including Photos. The Popular Album (9 Feb-21 Sep 1895) subsequently continued as Photos and Sketches (1895) and Boys’ Stories of Adventure and Daring (26 issues, 1898), The Gainsborough Novels (1901-), My Own Novels (1902-) and many others.

Roberts made much of his long-time association with publishing in his editorial piece, "Entre Nous":

It has long been a pet project of mine to offer to the male portion of the great British reading public a weekly journal, which, while it provided matter suitable for the leisure of intelligent men, should be issued in such an attractive form and at such a price, as would render it possible that the enterprise might meet with extensive support.
Of fiction for women there is surely a sufficiency, while I know of no journal which for the popular penny, offers a supply of readable novels specially for the sterner sex.
Fifteen years ago I initiated the “complete weekly novelette” movement, which has since become so popular in this country, as is evidenced by the scores of imitations of my original venture.
During that fifteen years I have issued to the reading public nearly two hundred millions of complete novels—all by first-class authors.
I mention this fact to show I know something about popular fiction.
Now I purpose to start in a new direction, and in Lazy Land I have provided such a pennyworth as would have been impossible ten years since.
Among the authors who will from week to week cater for my readers amusement I am able to enumerate the names of
Grant Allen
B. J. Farjeon
F. W. Robinson
R. M. Ballantyne
G. A. Henty
E. Downey
F. M. White
Ouida
George R. Sims
G. Manville Fenn
John Strange Winter
Frederick Boyle
W. Clark Russell
Fitzgerald Molloy
Iza Duffus Hardy
Florence Marryat
&c., &c., &c.

Other engagements are in course of arrangement, and particulars will duly be announced. Of the artistic staff which I have gathered round me, let the present number speak for itself. Lazy Land is designed to be “A Weekly Magazine for Men,” and, occupying an unique position in that respect, I trust I may look for support from the great army of ligth literature.
As I believe in performance rather than in promises, I place this, my first number, before you, and ask you to help me by introducing Lazy Land amongst your friends. By this means the journal will become widely known, and I shall be enabled to keep it up to the high standard of excellence which alone can secure success in these days of keen competition.

T. H. Roberts.

Unfortunately for Roberts, it turned out to be a short-lived journal which lasted only 45 issues in 1893-94. It was incorporated into Good Company, also edited by T. H. Roberts, which noted “the weekly issue of “Lazy Land” is incorporated with this journal.” The first issue of Good Company appeared on March 24, 1894, described by the British Library as “a newspaper.”

Contents:

Lazy Land [Part 1 Vol.II, June 1893] (3d, typographical cover)
1 * Allen, Grant * The Governor’s Story * ss; illus. Hal Ludlow
6 * A.H.T.P. * Supreme Moments * ss; illus. G. V. Reading
8 * White, F. M. * Bluffed * ss
9 * Anon. * My First Appearance No.1: Miss Lucille Hill * ar
10 * Fitzmorris, Alan * The Parsee’s Puzzle [Part 1 of ?] * sl; illus. A. Morrow
14 * Rymer, A. * Le Monade * pm
15 * E.C.W. * The Wedding Present * ss; illus. M. B. Hewerdine
18 * Allan, E. * My Wife * ss; illus. H. Holland
20 * Roberts, T. H. * “Entre Nous” * ed
21 * Sims, G. R. * A Five Pound Note * ss; illus. G. V. Reading
27 * [Misc. Material] * At the Academy * ct; illus. A. Syd Harvey
28 * Martin, Leslie * The Tools of His Trade * ss; illus. H. Holland
30 * Anon. * My First Appearance No.2: Miss Loie Fuller * ar
31 * Fitzmorris, Alan * The Parsee’s Puzzle [Part 2 of ?] * sl; illus. A. Morrow
34 * Roberts, Morley * A Traveller’s Tales No.1: Wide Bay Bar * ss; illus. M. B. Hewerdine
37 * Trovato, Ben * The Skirt and the Dance * ar; illus. E. S. Hope
39 * Morris, J. * The Rock of Nakayama * ss; illus. G. V. Reading
41 * Gallon, T. * Mark Hedley’s Protégé * ss; illus. A. Morrow
46 * Roberts, Morley * A Traveller’s Tales No.2: Madame Morphine * ss; illus. Charles Eade
52 * Fitzmorris, Alan * The Parsee’s Puzzle [Part 3 of ?] * sl; illus. A. Morrow
54 * [Comic Strip] * Things You Meet When You Want to Catch a Train! * cs
55 * Paton, C. Jardyne * For Two Quarts of Beer * ss; illus. G. V. Reading
58 * White, F. M. * The Kissing Bonds * ss; illus. H. Holland
60 * Rymer, A. * My Surrender * pm
61 * Russell, Clark * Adventures of a Seaman * ss; illus. G. V. Reading
67 * Henriquez, A. R. * My Bargain * ss; illus. E. S. Hope
71 * Fitzmorris, Alan * The Parsee’s Puzzle [Part 4 of ?] * sl; illus. A. Morrow
74 * Roberts, Morley * A Traveller’s Tales No.3: A Modern Slave * ss; illus. Charles Eade
79 * A.H.T.P. * Colonial Experience * ss; illus. G. V. Reading

The Grand Magazine

The Grand Magazine, issue 1

"The Most Original Magazine in the World" boasted the cover. "Every page in this magazine is interesting." Except the cover, perhaps, with its rather lacklustre attempt at design. However, the contents cannot be faulted and the first issue could boast contributions by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and George Bernard Shaw. It was published by George Newnes, by then a powerful name in publishing, whose company was able to attract a substantial amount of advertising for this new venture—so much, in fact, that the contents page did not appear until page 19 of a total of 24 pages of advertising.

The leading feature (the first of a series with the title “My Best Story”) was actually a reprint of an old Conan Doyle yarn which Doyle thought of as his best “because so large a theme is treated in so limited a space.”

Newnes introduced the magazine thus:

Thirteen years ago I came to the conclusion that more attration might be given to Magazines by the generous introduction of high-class illustrations.
I believed that a Magazine beautifully printed on Art paper, and with a picture on nearly every page, would be welcomed. And so the Strand Magazine was founded. Needless now to say, it met with abundant success from the first number, and after enjoying many years of prosperity is to-day more firmly than ever established in public favour, not only in Great Britain, but in the United States, in Canada, Australasia, and, indeed, wherever the English language is spoken.
Since then a number of Magazines on the lines of the Strand have eben issued by George Newnes, Limited—and others.
But whilst recognising the great and ever-enduring popularity of illustrations I have formed the opinion that a large number of the reading public sometimes prefer to let their imagination picture the scenes described rather than that the letterpress should be interrupted. Accordingly I am venturing to lay before a public whose generouse support in the past I can never adequately acknowledge a Magazine which will depend entirely on the literary strength of the Stories and Articles which it contains.
I shall have the advantage of the valuable co-operation of Mr. Greenough Smith, who has been closely associated with me in the Strand Magazine from its commencement, and who has for some years been its acting editor.
It is hoped that a strong point in the Grand Magazine will be the excellence of its fiction; and the greatest care will be taken to ensure that as rarely as possible a reader will be disappointed with a story which he has commenced.
Subjects which are occupying the public mind will be dealt with in a bright and original manner. It is possible with an all-letterpress Magazine to print immediately before publication so that topics of current interest may be included, albeit political and essentially controversial subjects will be avoided.
In the X-Rays section an attempt will be made each month to throw a piercing light on some national abuse. In this number the method of taking and relying upon Police evidence is the subject selected.
Many new features will be introduced from time to time, and it is hoped that the Grand Magazine will admittedly be entitled to make the modest claim which appears on the cover of the first number—Every page of this Magazine is interesting.

The first X-Ray concerned Adolf Beck, convicted of a fraud in 1896 which was very similar to a case in 1877 where a Mr. John Smith was tried and convicted of similar offences. The police case was that Beck and Smith were one and the same person and interviewed some 24 or 25 women; only those who positively identified Beck were brought forward at the trial—the Defence was never told the names of the women the police had interviewed who had said Beck was not Smith. Beck was arrested and convicted a second time in 1904, although in this instance the Judge refused to pass sentence. Two weeks later, the real John Smith was tried and confessed to the crimes Beck had been imprisoned for.

The case was examined by G. R. Sims and others and, eventually, a Commission was appointed to inquire into the case. The article was “written by an eminent Lawyer and Member of the House of Commons,” who was due to take an active part in a Commons Debate set up to discuss the Report of the Commission.

Amongst the ‘Interesting People’ were Lord Rosebery, Beerbohm Tree, Hall Caine and Lady Henry Somerset; ‘The Causeries of the Grand Club’ was nothing more than a posh gossip column; the ‘Grand Kaleidoscope’ was a miscellany of science and curiosities; and in the battle between Man and Woman for ‘Who Has the Best Time?’, writer John Oliver Hobbes maintained it was women.

Contents:

The Grand Magazine [#1, February 1905] (4½d, 24+180pp, cover: design)
1 * Newnes, Geo. * Introduction * ed
3 * Doyle, Sir Arthur * The Straggler of ’15 * ss * Black & White, 21 March 1891
14 * Anon. * Real Experiences of the Supernatural * ar
20 * Anon. * The Burglary at the Inn * ss
23 * Anon. * Both Sides: The Japanese and the Russians * ar
26 * Anon. * Both Sides: The Russians and the Japanese * ar
31 * Sardonm Victorien * The Bomb Shell * ss * from the French
37 * Anon. * How to Live Long * ar
44 * Anon. * The Immorality of Women at Bridge * ar
48 * Pigott, Mostyn T. * A Yarn of Years * pm
51 * Under the X-Rays No.1—The Case of Mr. Adolf Beck
61 * Anon. * Interesting People * ms
71 * Roberts, Morley * The Extra Hands of the S.S. “Nemesis” * ss
93 * Anon. * The Causeries of the Grand Club * ms
99 * Hobbes, John Oliver * Who Has the Best Time: A Man or a Woman? * ar
103 * Anon. * It Didn’t Take * pm
104 * Normanby, Henry * One Life or Two? * ss
110 * Anon. * What’s in a Name? * pm
111 * Shaw, G. Bernard * The Theatre of the Future * ss
129 * Anon. * Puzzles * ar
134 * Anon. * “Pet” Stories * ar
138 * Anon. * Hurrah for Old Winter * pm
139 * Anon. * Confession Without Absolution * nf
141 * Anon. * Plots of Plays * ms
149 * Heyse, Paul * L’arrabiata * ss * from the German
161 * Anon. * The Best Things to Read * ar
169 * Anon. * The Grand Kaleidoscope * ms

The Fleet Street Review

Slim (32 pages, plus cover) magazine edited by Henry Allen Ashton who introduced his new venture thus:

Fleet Street! the literary home of the world. What a recollection of newspapers and magazines, books, journals, and periodicals of all kinds these two words call forth! No longer do ships sail past “Flete Bridge” to “Holeburne Bridge,” nor do passers-by gaze at the historical edifice represented on our cover. All this is past, and now it is not too much to say that the literature of all England is disseminated from Fleet Street in ten thousand different publications.
It is indeed a bold thing to launch out a new magazine in this already crowded street in the year of Grace eighteen hundred and ninety-two, but confident in the integrity of our purpose, and not a little encouraged by many promises of valuable assistance, we venture to bring out our first number.
The Fleet Street Review will be published towards the end of each month, and will, for the most part, consist of articles and short stories by the best writers.
Graphic accounts of various trips in the country and tours around London, the chief places of interest being illustrated by eminent artists are arranged for production.
The ancient and modern history of notable places at home and abroad; a series of essays on men of Fleet Street, and on important City Churches (with illustrations) will also find a place in our columns, together with several new features never before treated in magazine literature.
The Proprietors of the Fleet Street Review will make it their constant endeavour to preserve the tone and quality of their magazine; its moderate cost bringing it within reach of everyone. In short, it is confidently expected that it will soon become universally known, and it is in reliance upon this hope that we commend our first number to the favourable reception of all who may be interested.

The second issue promised a contribution by Walter Besant, but as far as I know the paper lasted only 5 monthly issues.

Contents:
The Fleet Street Review [v1 #1, January 1892] (2d, 32pp, cover by ?)
3 * Ashton, Henry Allen * Editorial * ed
4 * Barrett, C. R. B. * A Reverie in Fleet Street * ar
8 * Hetherington, Helen F. * “A Bunch of Violets” * ss
16 * The Very Rev. The Dean * St. Paul’s Cathedral * ar
19 * Lloyd, Arnold * Infatuation * pm
20 * Ashton, Henry Allen * Incidents in the Lives of Notable Journalists * ar
23 * Anon. * Bric-a-Brac, and How to Collect It * ar
28 * Nex, C. * Lost Luggage. A Modern Antique * pm
29 * A Dock Clerk * The Gordon Dock Mystery [Part 1 of ?] * sl

The Country House

Octavo (14¼ x 22 cm) magazine published at 6d. The Country House was subtitled “A Magazine for Town & Country Readers” and was published for the Proprietors by John Thomas Brown, 30 Fleet Street, London E.C., although the editorial address was listed as Dacre House, Arundel Street, London W.C. John Thomas Brown at 30 Fleet Street was also responsible for The Cable, “a popular illustrated agricultural paper” published every Friday for 1d, edited by the Earl of Winchilsea which contained “a leading article by the Earl of Winchilsea, authoritative and reliable articles on poultry, pigs, goats, the dairy, bees, &c; current gossip; and a page devoted to the Children’s Order of Chivalry.”

The editorial column, ‘Rusticus in Urbe’, is signed P. Penyng, who says “We hope that the Country House may bring a whiff of rusticity to many a reader who is condemned to hard labour in town… We start on the assumption, and in the belief, that a large section of the reading public are interested primarily in the Land, and that they are sufficiently numerous to support a magazine devoted to rural interest.” Clearly the target market was landowners who worked in the city (“unkind fate may tear him from the soil, though a tangle of bricks and mortar may encumber his life, his heart ranges ever round the countryside. Many a man who spends his days in a dingy office and his nights in a stuffy street still cherishes the sweet spirit of the country in his soul”). Articles on local taxation and a feature on famous regiments were not aimed at the average farmer.

The contents at first glance were uninspiring, but the second article by Boy’s Own Paper regular Gordon Stables contained a delightful photograph of Stables’ famous caravan ‘The Wanderer’ and its occupants. The magazine also contained a good proportion of fiction (including stories by S. Baring-Gould and Arnold Golsworthy).

The title ran for a full volume and three issues of a second, from January 1895 to March 1896.

The Country House [v1 #1, October 1895] (6d, 128pp, cover by W. Winter)
1 * Lawes, Sir J. B. * Making a Pasture * ar
10 * Stables, Gordon * From Berkshire to Balmoral in my Caravan * ar
19 * Paget, Sir R. H. * Land and Local Taxation * ar
23 * Gale, Norman * Nature’s Teaching * pm
24 * Baring-Gould, S. * Cicely Crowe * ss; illus. E. Shute
39 * Anon. * Country Gentlemen I—The Right Hon. Walter Hume Long, M.P. * ar
42 * Kebbel, T. E. * The Tenth Muse * ar; illus. E. C. Woodward
52 * Mason, Finch * Angels on Horseback * ss; illus. Finch Mason
61 * Winchilsea, Earl of * Co-operation for Farmers * ar
70 * Abbott, Angus Evan * Regiments of Renown I—The Blues * ar; illus. Thomas Beaufort
86 * Winter, John Strange * The Old House at Home * ss; illus. A. B. Woodward & J. A. Christie
97 * A Son of the Marshes * Shrikes * ar; illus. R. Vanderlyn
103 * Golsworthy, Arnold * Wide Shots * ss; illus. Starr Wood
109 * Pendered, Mary L. * The Sign of the Brass Tea-Kettle * ss
115 * Anon. * Sport Through the Month * cl
126 * Penyng, P. * Rusticus in Urbe * ed

Charing Cross Magazine

From the opening editorial:

The Editor of the Charing Cross Magazine does not feel it incumbent to apologise for the appearance of a new Monthly. He makes his bow to the public, modestly, but without feeling the slightest diffidence or a wish to plead any extenuating circumstances. Neither does he care to excuse his coming by calling attention to the smallness of the price asked for the Charing Cross. Cheapness is not the principal feature in the Magazine, although it is to be sold for the sum of Threepence.
__The Charing Cross Magazine is not a hastily contrived, hurriedly executed periodical, neither is it produced just to show off what can be done by securing very large advertisement contracts. It will not be sold to boom any particular firm, individual, or company. The purpose of the Editor is to fill the void which the increase in price of the recent threepenny magazines has created. The taste has been fostered, the need remains; it is to meet this need that the Charing Cross Magazine has been established. The proprietors desire to emphasize the following facts: (1) the Charing Cross is the only threepenny Magazine for all classes; (2) It is the largest threepenny worth ever offered; (3) The price will never, under any circumstances, be increased; (4) The size will never be decreased; (5) The quality will be maintained; (6) The contents will be such as to offend no age, or sex, or creed.
__For the Magazine itself. You will like it. It will make the journey home pleasant and less tedious; the wife will enjoy it and, remember this, the children will not be forgotten. The tone of the Magazine, while containing all the qualities of interest, adventure, and humour, which characterize the most popular forms of periodical literature, will be such that it may be read in every home. Every story and every article, apart from its literary merits, will be chosen with a view to maintaining this standard. To interest and amuse, without pandering to the morbid taste which has crept into certain forms of journalism, is the goal which will be striven for. Through the medium of the correspondence section it is hoped that close and cordial intercourse will be maintained between subscribers and the staff.
__For the rest, when you read the Magazine, it will speak for itself. The Editor may say confidentially that the motto of the enterprise—the only Latin he keeps on the premises—is acta non verba, or, in other words, “no boasting.”
__The Editor and the Proprietors send to all their friends and readers the world over, the old, old greeting, “A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.”

After such a build-up it is sad to note that The Charing Cross Magazine lasted a mere 8 issues. Published by The New Century Press Ltd., 434 Strand, London W.C., the Charing Cross debuted shortly before Christmas 1899, the first issue dated January 1900 with the second issue to follow on January 30th. It would seem that its much heralded low cost was too low.

The contents were a typical mixture for the time of historical, geographical and humorous articles, a serial by the otherwise unknown Fritz Ormsby, and a few scattered stories.

The serial ‘A Baptism of Fire’ was a murder-mystery in which Norman Ormsby (sharing his surname with his author), a former member of the Light Infantry in Canada had come into some good fortune and was now in England staying with a recently made friend, Curzon Trefry, at the latter’s home at Grange Fort. A fire burns the cottage down and Trefry is killed but it is only at the Coroner’s Court that it is revealed that Trefry had been shot before his body was burnt. Ormsby moves into Tressilian Court in Cornwall, but rumours about his involvement in the death of Trefry follow him and while the Court verdict is Trefry was murdered by a person or persons unknown, the villagers have no doubt they know the killer’s identity. (In his brief introduction, the author admits that he has thrown deliberate suspicion on Norman Ormsby and that he is not the murderer.)

The most interesting of the articles was on Britain possible overpopulation which revealed that, if all the mountains, moors and waterways were brought together they would occupy the whole of Scotland and Wales, cultivated land would fill Ireland, forests would fill Yorkshire and over three-quarters of England would be grassland—with houses and towns filling Cornwall, Devon and Dorset. This, the author revealed was a great increase in housing, for when Victoria came to the throne, Britain’s houses could have been packed into Lincolnshire. The whole population, the article claimed, could live on the Isle of Man, with each family having enough room to pitch a tent. “If we wanted to cover all the British Isles as closely as London, we should need quite four hundred million houses. Luckily, we don’t want, or air would have to be supplied to the unfortunate inhabitants by meter.”

Contents of first issue:

The Charing Cross Magazine [#1 v1, January 1900] (3d, 118pp+ads, cover by A.W.)
1 * Anon. * The New Year * pm
3 * Anon. * Introduction * ed
4 * Gregory, Lieut.-Colonel A. G. S. * Charing Cross * ar; illus. A. G. S. Gregory
5 * Oliver, Edwin * The Thames Palaces * ar; illus. W. Amor Fenn
16 * Biddle, Agnes M. * Mademoiselle la Négresse * ss; illus. photos
23 * Sherman, H. T. * The Oldest Printing House in the World. At the sign of the Golden Compass * ar; illus. photos
28 * [Comic Strip] * The Sporting Monkey and the Sleeping Toucan * cs; art by Chip
29 * Genone, T. * An African Hunting Story * ss; illus. D. G. Blakiston
38 * Silver, R. Norman * The Home-Secretary’s Diamond. A tale of the House of Commons * ss; illus. C. Dudley Tennant
46 * Macgregor, Lieut.-Colonel John * The Ghost of Captain Christie * ss; illus. Coralie Hetherington
57 * [Comic Strip] * The Sporting Dispatch Rider * cs; art by Jim Swift
59 * Bazin, Rene * The Return. A Christmas story * ss; illus. Coralie Hetherington
68 * Anon. * Beauties of the American Stage * pi
71 * Collin, Edward * Is Britain Overpopulated? * ar
75 * Anon. * South African Pictures * pi
79 * Tillotson, Mrs. W. D. * Buddhistic Funeral Rites and Ceremonies * ar; illus. photo
82 * Castelhun, Maida * Daybreak in the Country * pm
83 * Quiller-Couch, Mabel * Two Years Hard Labour * ss; illus. Coralie Hetherington
94 * Anon. * Types of English Dudes * pi; illus. Jim Swift
98 * Howell, Arthur * Bringing His Sheaves With Him * ss; illus. Jim Swift
107 * Ormsby, Fritz * A Baptism of Fire [Part 1 of ?] * sl
115 * Q.C. * From the Temple Garden * cl

Chapman's Magazine

Edited by Oswald Crawfurd and published by Chapman & Hall, Chapman's Magazine was not illustrated and expected to survive on its content alone. No doubt readers were drawn in by the names of popular authors Bret Harte, Anthony Hope and Violet Hunt. The contents were an odd (by modern standards) mixture of stories and brief plays—even Violet Hunt’s serial was described as “a story in scenes” and is partly told in the form of a play.

There was no editorial introduction, only an announcement that the contents of the second issue would contain the continuation of Bret Harte’s and Violent Hunt’s serial novels plus stories by Mrs. Clifford, S. R. Crockett, George Gissing, Morley Roberts, Eden Phillpotts, George Ira Brett, and the first act of a Play-Story, entitled “A Gentleman Adventurer”.

Mike Ashley, in his splendid The Age of the Storytellers, relates that editor Crawfurd was a man whose ambitions outreached his abilities and, while he hoped that Chapman's Magazine would attract the literary establishment. The contents were, however, more likely to find a market amongst those who read The Strand or The Idler.

Falling between two camps, it lasted only 42 issues, folding with vol.2 no.2 , October 1898. Crawfurd, tired of the criticism he was receiving from his publishers, resigned and took his magazine with him. He sold it to New Century Press where it was revived as Crampton's Magazine, but it had no-less a turbulent time and eventually passed through two more publishers before coming to a final close in 1902.

Contents of first issue:

Chapman’s Magazine [v1 #1, May 1895] (6d, xxiv+112pp, cover: design)
1 * Harte, Bret * In a Hollow of the Hills [Part 1 of ?] * sl
15 * Hope, Anthony * Bad Matches * pl
28 * Weyman, Stanley J. * For the Cause * pl
49 * Brett, George Ira * Experiences of Inspector Battle (of the Criminal Investigation Department): The Murder at Jex Farm [Part 1 of 2] * nt [Inspector Battle]
63 * Payn, James * A Noiseless Burglar * ss
67 * Moore, F. Frankfort * Reggie’s Rival * ss
83 * Hunt, Violet * A Hard Woman [Part 1 of ?] * sl
106 * Davidson, John * An Age-End Ballad of a Poet Born * pm

Boys' Magazine

Boys' Magazine debuted on February 27, 1922, printed and published for the proprietors of the London Publishing Co. Ltd., by E. Hulton & Co. Ltd., 46 and 47 Shoe Lane, London E.C.4. It's a relatively small, stocky publication, 16 x 22 cm with 36 pages, priced 2d, originally published "Every Monday" but switching to "Every Saturday" with issue 7 (the change wasn't mentioned on the cover until issue 8, but the date for issue 7 indicate the changeover). I imagine it was an immediate success as the format was very quickly copied by C. Arthur Pearson for Jack's Paper which was launched the following October.

The two-colour covers were primarily red, always dramatic although unsigned. The paper had some good illustrators, including J. H. Valda, Glossop and R. H. Brock.

The contents were good: school stories by H. Clarke Hook (son of S. Clarke Hook, creator of Jack, Sam & Pete) who did a few fill-in stories on The Magnet. As you'd expect, Stormcove College was modelled on Greyfriars and starred the Famous Four, Tom 'Sprucer' Smith (the Captain of the Remove) & Co., the Co. being Jim Barker, Kent Major (there was also a Miner) and a Hindu named Inky. Stormcove is run by Dr. Croak, although the Famous Four are under the tutelage of Mr. Tutt and the main butt of the jokes (amongst the teachers, anyway) is the French master, Monsieur Dupont. Ragging French masters was a time-honoured tradition dating back to 'The Boys of Bircham School', fifty-five years earlier... in other words, the series had absolutely no surprises to anyone who has read The Magnet.

Slightly better were the Westdown School series by Jack Jolling [Alfred Judd] starring Derry O'Dean, Dick Hawley and Horace Pelham Bingle, the latter the creator of bizarre inventions which often get the trio into trouble. They debuted a few issues later and were more broadly humorous.

John Hunter was the author of the two opening serials (one as Stanton Doyle). "The Lure of the Lost Land" was the story of three school chums, Dick Ferris, Mick Harrigan and Don Lindsay, who get involved with a flying machine invented by Dick's uncle and a search for untold wealth in a lost area of the Amazon to battle prehistoric monsters and a band of modern pirates led by Captain Death. "Dare-Devil Trent" was Jack Trent, cinema star and footballer, who must win the cup for his team, Barton City F.C., in order to raise the finances for his next movie. Against him is Hirst Krautmann, head of a rival company who will do anything to stop the struggling team from winning a match.

As with many papers at that time, the central character was a detective, and Boys' Magazine was no different. Each issue contained a long, complete story of Falcon Swift, a monocled crime fighter who deals with crimes in the sporting world (although that does not stop occasional jaunts to the wild west or China). Falcon is a masterful all-round sportsman, whether it's football, cricket or fencing, and uses his sporting ties to solve mysteries with his young assistant, Chick Conway.

Sport was to the fore in Boys' Magazine from the start. Many of the free gifts given with the paper were pictures of sporting personalities and teams and the first issue had the banner heading "New Magazine of Sport and Adventure"; as the months went by the focus changed slightly from the former to the latter many old fans recollections of the paper seem to be dominated by science fiction serials, many of which featured lost lands and prehistoric monsters.

Later in its first year, none other than cowboy film star Buck Jones joined the paper to write a series of western stories featuring Rex Remington, although the chances that Buck himself was writing them are zero! I don't have a clue who ghosted them, but they're fondly remembered.

Boys’ Magazine, for most of its run published by Allied Newspapers, eventually folded in January 1934 after 620 issues, incorporated into Champion.