This anthology makes available to students and general readers the rich variety of Victorian magazines for women. The extracts range from fashion magazines to feminist journals, from serious works for Christian mothers to tales of romance and passion for ‘sweethearts’. Focusing on the historical development of the British women’s magazine, this extensively illustrated work gives access to texts which few readers ever see.

The first main section describes and illustrates eight kinds of magazine for women. Though they have common features, the differences between the drawing room journal of the 1830s and 1840s and the cheap domestic magazines of the 1890s are clearly demonstrated. The second section focuses on those elements which made up the magazine’s typical mix of ingredients, including fiction, the fashion plate, poetry, political journalism, advice columns and reader’s letters. The last section is the most comprehensive listing of British Victorian women’s magazines which currently exists.

This is a work of scholarship but one which will appeal to students of Cultural, Historical, Literary and Women’s Studies, as well as to the general interested reader. Like the magazines it represents, it offers its readers both entertainment and instruction.

Margaret Beetham is Reader in the Department of English at Manchester Metropolitan University|Kay Boardman was Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Central Lancashire