WOMEN ADVISING WOMEN
Advice Books, Manuals and Journals for Women, 1450-1837

Part 3: The Ladys Magazine, 1770-1800

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

The Lady’s Magazine is a gold mine of poetry and prose by women, news of the latest fashions, pen portraits of female role models, and frank and revealing correspondence by women readers.

During its lifetime it claimed to witness a sea-change in the status of women. In its early days it saw no reason to constrain the education or activities of women. By 1825, however, it lamented that "Women have completely abandoned all attempts to shine in the political horizon, and now seek only to exercise their virtues in domestic retirement ... contented with truly feminine occupations." For further details on this please see below.

Did such a sea-change occur? How did women’s writing and language change over this period? How did the format and nature of the magazine change?

We have pieced together a complete edition of The Lady’s Magazine from 1770 to 1832, by drawing on the resources of four British and American libraries.

This microfilm edition covers the Original Series (vols 1-49, 1770-1818); the New Series (vols 1-10, 1820-29); and the Improved Series (vols 1-5, 1830-32). We also include a short-lived rival using the same title (The Lady’s Magazine, 1791) and an earlier magazine with the same title (The Lady’s Magazine, 1738-1739).
Each volume is indexed.

Scholars can use this source to eavesdrop on the conversations of fashionable soires, to monitor the rise of the cult of appearances, and to sample women’s writing in the age of Jane Austen.

Part 3 covers the period up to 1800. The years 1801-1832 and the additional items for 1738-1739, 1791, 1836 and 1843 are covered in Part 4.

“The year 1770 bought what may perhaps be regarded as the first objective and professional effort to create a magazine acceptable to women.”

Cynthia L White

writing in Women’s Magazines, 1693-1968

(London, 1970)

The Lady’s Magazine – an entertaining and educational journal aimed at “the housewife as well as the peeress” – was launched in January 1770 and went on to become one of the longest lived journals of the period.

Journals aimed specifically at women had appeared before – witness The Ladies Mercury (1693) (Please see Part 1, Reel 1 of the Women Advising Women project); The Female Tatler (1709-1710) (Part 1, Reel 2); The Ladies Journal (1727) (Part 1, Reel 2); The Female Spectator (1744-1746) (Part 1, Reel 3) and other titles in Part 1 of this series – but the publication of The Lady’s Magazine was a pioneering effort to break into the market for substantial monthly collections aimed at a specific target audience. In the frontpiece to their lady readers in the first monthly instalment the editors noted:

“When you consider the eagerness with which mankind make their addresses to the shrine of beauty, you may not be a little surprised, that you should be totally neglected by the learned.  The press groans with monthly collections calculated for the particular entertainment or improvement of men; and variety of articles are strewed, with no sparing hand, by those who would steal into the notice of the public, by catching the favourite inclinations of the times.  Yet, as your sex is in this age more employed in reading, than it was in the last, it is something surprising that no periodical production should at present exist calculated for your particular amusement, and designed to improve as well as to delight. … Every branch of literature will be ransacked to please and instruct the mind …”

(frontispiece to Volume I, January 1770)

The magazine immediately settled into a format that was to last for at least sixty years, offering 48 pages of stories, poetry, fashion, popular music, crafts, foreign & domestic news, politics, readers’ letters, anecdotes, advice and instruction.

The contents of the first volume are as follows:

• pp 5-12 - A Sentimental Journey.  By a Lady
• pp 12-18 - Happiness The Effect of Misfortune: A Real History
• [plate] - A Lady in Full Dress
• pp 18-20 - Friendship: An Allegory
• pp 20-21 - Remarkable Instance of Justice in the Sultan Sandyar
• p 21 - The Taylor’s Dream: An Oriental Tale
• pp 21-22 - A Character
• pp 22-24, 31, 33-37 - Letters
• p 24 - Comfort for the Afflicted: An Arabic Anecdote
• p 24 - The Blind Husband: An Anecdote
• pp 25-26 - The Miraculous History of the Origin of the Convent of Monserate in Spain
• pp 26-29 - An Account of the English Nunnery in Lisbon
• pp 29-30 - An Account of the English Nunnery in Lisbon
• pp 29-30 - The Impious Lynx & the Virtuous Male
• pp 30 - The Application
• pp 31, 38-40 - Poetry
• pp 31-33 - The Effects of Avarice: An Oriental Tale
• pp 41-42 - Foreign News
• pp 43-47 - Home News
• p 47 - American News
• pp 47-48 - Births, Marriages, Deaths, Promotions & Bankrupts

Each annual volume is indexed, allowing users easy access to the essays, poetry and other contents of the magazine.

The Lady’s Magazine was especially strong in fiction and poetry, but its Essays, Readers’ Letters and Political News will also make it a popular quarry for researchers investigating many different topics.  The longevity of the magazine will enable scholars to trace changing attitudes over time.

In 1770 it was asserted that “The minds of the sex, when properly cultivated are not inferior to those whose honour it is to be the protectors and instructors of the fair.”  Female education is a perennial concern of the magazine and is constantly advocated.

By March 1808 the tone is still feisty, but some concessions have clearly been made as can be seen from the plea: “I should be very glad to be informed why those females who endeavour to improve their minds by reading, and take some little care to qualify themselves for companions to men of sense, should by those means become objects of ridicule.  The gentlemen are very liberal in bestowing the epithets of triflers and silly women on those who have a mere female education; if any of us have resolution enough to soar beyond narrow limits, and dare to read anything of more importance than a play or a novel, we are called critics, wits, female pedants, &c”

By February 1825, it seems, the game is up – although the change in attitude is begrudgingly acknowledged by the Editor of the magazine: “Women have completely abandoned all attempts to shine in the political horizon, and now seek only to exercise their virtues in domestic retirement.  The wise (who happily form the majority) perceiving the bad taste manifested in striving for mastery with men, are contented with truly feminine occupations, but in discarding their follies, and in endeavouring to become rational companions instead of the toys and tyrants of men, have fallen from their high estate and dwindled into comparative insignificance.”

This passage is also quoted by Cynthia White (Op cit, p39) who goes on to suggest that “(t)his passage chronicled an important era in the history of upper-class women: the sudden reversal of the trend which promised their wider participation in social affairs, and their gradual withdrawal into the home.”

At about the same time the Political and Foreign News content of the magazine also disappear and the importance of personal appearance  (dress, diet and complexion) and domesticity are shown by the growth of these sections.

And whilst a Letter of Advice to a Lady on the point of marriage in November 1770 counsels that: ”Prudence and virtue will certainly secure esteem but unfortunately, esteem alone will not make a happy marriage, passion must also be kept alive …” – the emphasis post 1825 is on modesty and virtue – perhaps even on companionship and governing household – but certainly not passion.

But, inevitably, the picture is more complex than that.  Numerous counter-examples can be produced to show that the cult of appearances was already prevalent from the outset; passion (especially in the romantic fiction of the magazine) is a constant; and the growing emphasis on domestic science is more to do with the expansion of the audience of the magazine beyond those with servants at their beck and call.

Scholars can now survey the evidence themselves.  Projects to compare the content of, for example, Readers’ letters, 1770-1832, will help to challenge received notions of the chronology of women.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the popularity of The Lady’s Magazine, the survival of copies of the magazine is extremely patchy.  We have pieced together this run of the magazine from 3 different locations – The British Library, Cambridge University Library and Birmingham Central Libraries.  This covers the original series (volumes 1-49); the New Series (volumes 1-10); and the Improved Series (volumes 1-5). 

The Lady’s Magazine is a crucial publication in the history of women’s magazines

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adburgham, Alice

Women in Print: Writing Women & Women’s Magazines from the Restoration to the Accession of Victoria (1972)

Dancyger, Irene 

A World of Women – An illustrated history of women’s magazines, 1700-1970 (1978)

Shevelow, Kathryn

Women & Print Culture: The Construction of Femininity in the Early Periodical (1989)

White, Cynthia

Women’s Magazines, 1693-1968 (1970)

< Back