History of Bookbinding
Western books from the fifth century onwards were bound between hard covers, with pages made from parchment folded and sewn on to strong cords or ligaments that were attached to wooden boards and covered with leather. Since early books were exclusively handwritten on handmade materials, sizes and styles varied considerably, and there was no standard of uniformity. Early and medieval codices were bound with flat spines, and it was not until the fifteenth century that books began to have the rounded spines associated with hardcovers today. Because the vellum of early books would react to humidity by swelling, causing the book to take on a characteristic wedge shape, the wooden covers of medieval books were often secured with straps or clasps. These straps, along with metal bosses on the book's covers to keep it raised off the surface that it rests on, are collectively known as furniture.
The earliest surviving European bookbinding is the St Cuthbert Gospel of about 700, in red goatskin, now in the British Library, whose decoration includes raised patterns and coloured tooled designs. Very grand manuscripts for liturgical rather than library use had covers in metalwork called treasure bindings, often studded with gems and incorporating ivory relief panels or enamel elements. Very few of these have survived intact, as they have been broken up for their precious materials, but a fair number of the ivory panels have survived, as they were hard to recycle; the divided panels from the Codex Aureus of Lorsch are among the most notable. The 8th century Vienna Coronation Gospels were given a new gold relief cover in about 1500, and the Lindau Gospels (now Morgan Library, New York) have their original cover from around 800.
Luxury medieval books for the library had leather covers decorated, often all over, with tooling (incised lines or patterns), blind stamps, and often small metal pieces of furniture. Medieval stamps showed animals and figures as well as the vegetal and geometric designs that would later dominate book cover decoration. Until the end of the period books were not usually stood up on shelves in the modern way. The most functional books were bound in plain white vellum over boards, and had a brief title hand-written on the spine. Techniques for fixing gold leaf under the tooling and stamps were imported from the Islamic world in the 15th century, and thereafter the gold-tooled leather binding has remained the conventional choice for high quality bindings for collectors, though cheaper bindings that only used gold for the title on the spine, or not at all, were always more common. Although the arrival of the printed book vastly increased the number of books produced in Europe, it did not in itself change the various styles of binding used, except that vellum became much less used.
Introduction of Paper
Cai Lun (ca. 50 AD – 121) improved the first significant improvement and standardization of papermaking by adding essential new materials into its composition.
In the 8th century Arabs learned the arts of papermaking from the Chinese and were then the first to bind paper into books at the start of the Islamic Golden Age. Particular skills were developed for Arabic calligraphy, miniatures and bookbinding. The people who worked in making books were called Warraqin or paper professionals. The Arabs made books lighter—sewn with silk and bound with leather covered paste boards, they had a flap that wrapped the book up when not in use. As paper was less reactive to humidity, the heavy boards were not needed. The production of books became a real industry and cities like Marrakech, Morocco, had a street named Kutubiyyin or book sellers, which contained more than 100 bookshops in the 12th century; the famous Koutoubia Mosque is named so because of its location on this street. Because the Qur'an itself was considered a sacred object, in order to beautify the book containing the holy scripture, a culture of calligraphy and lavish bookbinding developed.
Development
With the arrival (from the East) of rag paper manufacturing in Europe in the late Middle Ages and the use of the printing press beginning in the mid-15th century, bookbinding began to standardize somewhat, but page sizes still varied considerably.
With printing, the books became more accessible and were stored on their side on long shelves for the first time. Clasps were removed, and titles were added to the spine.
Leipzig, a prominent centre of the German book-trade, had in 1739 20 bookshops, 15 printing establishments, 22 book-binders and three type-foundries in a population of 28,000 people.
In the German book-distribution system of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the end-user buyers of books "generally made separate arrangements with either the publisher or a bookbinder to have printed sheets bound according to their wishes and their budget".
The reduced cost of books facilitated cheap lightweight Bibles, made from tissue-thin oxford paper, with floppy covers, that resembled the early Arabic Qurans, enabling missionaries to take portable books with them around the world, and modern wood glues enabled the addition of paperback covers to simple glue bindings.
Within the printed side of publishing, all magazines, books, reports, brochures etc are all bound together in a certain way to keep the pages held together, in order and readable. In order to do this there are lots of different techniques to bind products together. A bind within a book often gives it an overall aesthetic or can add to the style and design of a publication if thought through well from the beginning. Most people would think that the binding of a product would be the last thing to worry about and think about, but really it should be one of the first, as the type of bind used within a product is dependant of the overall style and design of the product.
Historical Forms of Binding
Historical forms of binding include the following:
Coptic binding: a method of sewing leaves/pages together
Ethiopian binding
Long-stitch bookbinding
Wooden board
Limp vellum
Calf-binding ("leather-bound")
Paper case
In-board cloth
Cased cloth binding
Bradel Binding
Secret Belgian binding
Traditional Chinese and Korean bookbinding and Japanese stab binding
Girdle binding
Some books have even been bound in human skin, a practice known as anthropodermic bibliopegy.
Modern Commercial Binding
There are various commercial techniques in use today. Today, most commercially produced books belong to one of four categories:
Hardcover binding
A hardcover, hardbound book has rigid covers and is stitched in the spine. Looking from the top of the spine, the book can be seen to consist of a number of signatures bound together. When the book is opened in the middle of a signature, the binding threads are visible. Signatures of hardcover books are typically octavo (a single sheet folded three times), though they may also be folio, quarto, or 16mo (see Book size). Unusually large and heavy books are sometimes bound with wire.
Until the mid-20th century, covers of mass-produced books were laid with cloth, but from that period onward, most publishers adopted clothette, a kind of textured paper which vaguely resembles cloth but is easily differentiated on close inspection. Most cloth-bound books are now half-and-half covers with cloth covering only the spine. In that case, the cover has a paper overlap. The covers of modern hardback books are made of thick cardboard.
Some books that appeared in the mid-20th century signature-bound appear in reprinted editions in glued-together editions. Copies of such books stitched together in their original format are often difficult to find, and are much sought after for both aesthetic and practical reasons.
A variation of the hardcover which is more durable is the calf-binding, where the cover is either half or fully clad in leather, usually from a calf. This is also called full-bound or, simply, leather bound.
Library binding refers to the hardcover binding of serials and paperback books intended for the rigors of library use. Though many publishers have started to provide "library binding" editions, many libraries elect to purchase paperbacks and have them rebound as hardcover books, resulting in longer life for the material.
Methods of hardcover binding:
There are a number of methods used to bind hardcover books, from them:
1. Case binding is the most common type of hardcover binding for books. The pages are arranged in signatures and glued together into a "textblock." The textblock is then attached to the cover or "case" which is made of cardboard covered with paper, cloth, vinyl or leather. This is also known as perfect binding, cloth binding, or edition binding.
2. Oversewing, where the signatures of the book start off as loose pages which are then clamped together. Small vertical holes are punched through the far left-hand edge of each signature, and then the signatures are sewn together with lock-stitches to form the text block. Oversewing is a very strong method of binding and can be done on books up to five inches thick. However, the margins of oversewn books are reduced and the pages will not lie flat when opened.
3. Sewing through the fold (also called Smyth sewing), where the signatures of the book are folded and stitched through the fold. The signatures are then sewn or glued together at the spine to form a text block. In contrast to oversewing, through-the-fold books have wide margins and can open completely flat. However, the text block of a sewn-through-the-fold book is not very secure, which can cause some signatures to come loose over time. Many varieties of sewing stitches exist, from basic links to complex decorative stitches. While Western books are generally sewn through holes punched along the fold, some Asian bindings, such as the Retchoso or Butterfly Stitch of Japan, use small slits instead of punched holes.
4. Double-fan adhesive binding starts off with two signatures of loose pages, which are run over a roller—"fanning" the pages—to apply a thin layer of glue to each page edge. Then the two signatures are perfectly aligned to form a text block, and glue edges of the text block are attached to a piece of cloth lining to form the spine. Double-fan adhesive bound books can open completely flat and have a wide margin. However, certain types of paper do not hold adhesive well, and, with wear and tear, the pages can come loose.
Punch and Bind
Different types of the punch and bind binding include:
1. Double wire, twin loop, or Wire-O binding is a type of binding that is used for books that will be viewed or read in an office or home type environment. The binding involves the use of a "C" shaped wire spine that is squeezed into a round shape using a wire closing device. Double wire binding allows books to have smooth crossover and is affordable in many colors. This binding is great for annual reports, owners manuals and software manuals. Wire bound books are made of individual sheets, each punched with a line of round or square holes on the binding edge. This type of binding uses either a 3:1 pitch hole pattern with three holes per inch or a 2:1 pitch hole pattern with two holes per inch. The three to one hole pattern is used for smaller books that are up to 9/16" in diameter while the 2:1 pattern is normally used for thicker books as the holes are slightly bigger to accommodate slightly thicker, stronger wire. Once punched, the back cover is then placed on to the front cover ready for the wire binding elements (double loop wire) to be inserted. The wire is then placed through the holes. The next step involves the binder holding the book by its pages and inserting the wire into a "closer" which is basically a vise that crimps the wire closed and into its round shape. The back page can then be turned back to its correct position, thus hiding the spine of the book.
2. Comb binding uses a 9/16" pitch rectangular hole pattern punched near the bound edge. A curled plastic "comb" is fed through the slits to hold the sheets together. Comb binding allows a book to be disassembled and reassembled by hand without damage. Comb supplies are typically available in a wide range of colors and diameters. The supplies themselves can be re-used or recycled. In the United States, comb binding is often referred to as 19-ring binding because it uses a total of 19 holes along the 11-inch side of a sheet of paper.
3. VeloBind is used to permanently rivet pages together using a plastic strip on the front and back of the document. Sheets for the document are punched with a line of holes near the bound edge. A series of pins attached to a plastic strip called a Comb feeds through the holes to the other side and then goes through another plastic strip called the receiving strip. The excess portion of the pins is cut off and the plastic heat-sealed to create a relatively flat bind method. VeloBind provides a more permanent bind than comb-binding, but is primarily used for business and legal presentations and small publications.
4. Spiral binding is the most economical form of mechanical binding when using plastic or metal. It is commonly used for atlases and other publications where it is necessary or desirable to be able to open the publication back on itself without breaking the spine. There are several types but basically it is made by punching holes along the entire length of the spine of the page and winding a wire helix (like a spring) through the holes to provide a fully flexible hinge at the spine. Spiral coil binding uses a number of different hole patterns for binding documents. The most common hole pattern used with this style is 4:1 pitch (4 holes per inch). However, spiral coil spines are also available for use with 3:1 pitch, 5:1 pitch and 0.400-hole patterns.
5. Proclick (GBC) is a relatively new binding style that was originally designed for use with a 3:1 pitch wire binding hole pattern. This type of binding uses an element that snaps shut and can be easily opened for editing purposes. The editing abilities of this style make it popular with direct sales organizations and mobile offices. Proclick is manufactured exclusively by the General Binding Corporation.
6. ZipBind is also manufactured by the General Binding Corporation and offers easy editing. However, the binding spines for this style are designed to work with the 9/16" plastic comb binding hole pattern. Like Proclick, Zipbind spines can easily be opened and closed without the need for a binding machine. Thus the addition and deletion of pages is a simple process provided that the pages have already been punched.
Thermally Activated Binding
Some of the different types of thermally activated binding include:
1. Perfect binding is often used, and gives a result similar to paperback books. National Geographic is one example of this type. Paperback or soft cover books are also normally bound using perfect binding. They usually consist of various sections with a cover made from heavier paper, glued together at the spine with a strong glue. The sections are milled in the back and notches are applied into the spine to allow hot glue to penetrate into the spine of the book. The other three sides are then face trimmed. This is what allows the magazine or paperback book to be opened. Mass market paperbacks (pulp paperbacks) are small (16mo size), cheaply made with each sheet fully cut and glued at the spine; these are likely to fall apart or lose sheets after much handling or several years. Trade paperbacks are more sturdily made, with traditional gatherings or sections of bifolios, usually larger, and more expensive. The difference between the two can usually easily be seen by looking for the sections in the top or bottom sides of the book.
2. Thermal binding uses a one piece cover with glue down the spine to quickly and easily bind documents without the need for punching. Individuals usually purchase "thermal covers" or "therm-a-bind covers" which are usually made to fit a standard size sheet of paper and come with a glue channel down the spine. The paper is placed in the cover, heated in a machine (basically a griddle), and when the glue cools, it adheres the paper to the spine. Thermal glue strips can also be purchased separately for individuals that wish to use customized/original covers. However, creating documents using thermal binding glue strips can be a tedious process which requires a scoring device and a large format printer.
3. A cardboard article looks like a hardbound book at first sight, but it is really a paperback with hard covers. Many books that are sold as hardcover are actually of this type. The Modern Library series is an example. This type of document is usually bound with thermal adhesive glue using a perfect binding machine.
4. Tape binding refers to a system that wraps and glues a piece of tape around the base of the document. A tape binding machine such as the Powis Parker Fastback or Standard Accubind system will usually be used to complete the binding process and to activate the thermal adhesive on the glue strip. However, some users also refer to Tape Binding as the process of adding a colored tape to the edge of a mechanically fastened (stapled or stitched) document.
5. Unibind is a variety of thermal binding that uses a special steel channel with resin rather than glue inside of it to give it a more sturdy bind to hold the pages in place. Unibind can be used to bind soft covered documents with a look that is similar to perfect binding. It can also be used for binding hardcover books and photo books. Like Thermal Binding, unibind usually requires you to purchase a one piece coverset to bind your documents. However, Unibind also offers SteelBack spines that allow you to use your own covers in the binding process. The majority of Unibinds covers can be printed on as well to give documents a unique finish. (Unibind is also the name of an International binding company).
Stitched or sewn binding
Types of stitched or sewn bindings:
1. A sewn book is constructed in the same way as a hardbound book, except that it lacks the hard covers. The binding is as durable as that of a hardbound book.
2. Stapling through the centerfold, also called saddle-stitching, joins a set of nested folios into a single magazine issue; most American comic books are well-known examples of this type.
4. Magazines are considered more ephemeral than books, and less durable means of binding them are usual. In general, the cover papers of magazines will be the same as the inner pages (self-cover) or only slightly heavier (plus cover). Most magazines are stapled or saddle-stitched; however, some are bound with perfect binding and use thermally activated adhesive.
Modern Handbinding
Modern bookbinding by hand can be seen as two closely allied fields: the creation of new bindings, and the repair of existing bindings. Bookbinders are often active in both fields. Bookbinders can learn the craft through apprenticeship; by attending specialized trade schools; by taking classes in the course of university studies, or by a combination of those methods. Some European countries offer a Master Bookbinder certification, though no such certification exists in the United States. MFA programs that specialize in the 'Book Arts,' (hand paper-making, printmaking and bookbinding) are available through certain colleges and universities.
Hand bookbinders create new bindings that run the gamut from historical book structures made with traditional materials to modern structures made with 21st-century materials, and from basic cloth-case bindings to valuable full-leather fine bindings. Repairs to existing books also encompass a broad range of techniques, from minimally invasive conservation of a historic book to the full restoration and rebinding of a text.
Though almost any existing book can be repaired to some extent, only books that were originally sewn can be rebound by resewing. Repairs or restorations are often done to emulate the style of the original binding. For new works, some publishers print unbound manuscripts which a binder can collate and bind, but often an existing commercially bound book is pulled, or taken apart, in order to be given a new binding. Once the textblock of the book has been pulled, it can be rebound in almost any structure; a modern suspense novel, for instance, could be rebound to look like a 16th-century manuscript. Bookbinders may bind several copies of the same text, giving each copy a unique appearance.
Hand bookbinders use a variety of specialized hand tools, the most emblematic of which is the bonefolder, a flat, tapered, polished piece of bone used to crease paper and apply pressure. Additional tools common to hand bookbinding include a variety of knives and hammers, as well as brass tools used during finishing.
When creating new work, modern hand binders often work on commission, creating bindings for specific books or collections. Books can be bound in many different materials. Some of the more common materials for covers are leather, decorative paper, and cloth (see also: buckram). Those bindings that are made with exceptionally high craftsmanship, and that are made of particularly high-quality materials (especially full leather bindings), are known as fine or extra bindings.
Paperback Binding
Though books are sold as hardcover or paperback, the actual binding of the pages is important to durability. Most paperbacks and some hard cover books have a "perfect binding". The pages are aligned or cut together and glued. A strong and flexible layer, which may or may not be the glue itself, holds the book together. In the case of a paperback, the visible portion of the spine is part of this flexible layer.
Spine Orientation
In languages written from left to right, such as English, books are bound on the left side of the cover; looking from on top, the pages increase counter-clockwise. In right-to-left languages, books are bound on the right. In both cases, this is so the end of a page coincides with where it is turned. Many translations of Japanese comic books retain the binding on the right, which allows the art, laid out to be read right-to-left, to be published without mirror-imaging it.
In China (only areas using Traditional Chinese), Japan, and Taiwan, literary books are written top-to-bottom, right-to-left, and thus are bound on the right, while text books are written left-to-right, top-to-bottom, and thus are bound on the left. In mainland China, all books have changed to be written and bound like left to right languages in the mid-20th century.
Spine Tilting
Early books did not have titles on their spines; rather they were shelved flat with their spines inward, and titles written with ink along their fore edges. Modern books display their titles on their spines.
In languages with Chinese-influenced writing systems, the title is written top-to-bottom, as is the language in general. In languages written horizontally, conventions differ about the direction in which the title on the spine is rotated:
1. In the United States, the Commonwealth, Scandinavia and for books in Dutch, titles are usually written top-to-bottom on the spine. This means that when the book is placed on a table with the front cover upwards, the title is oriented left-to-right on the spine. This practice is reflected in the industry standards ANSI/NISO Z39.41 and ISO 6357.
2. In most of continental Europe and Latin America, titles are conventionally printed bottom-to-top on the spine so, when the books are placed vertically on shelves, the title can be read by tilting the head to the left.
Terms and Techniques
1. A leaf (often wrongly referred to as a folio) typically has two pages of text and/or images, front and back, in a finished book. The Latin for leaf is folium, and "folio" (the ablative) literally means "on leaf" and should be followed by a number, thus "folio 5r" means "on the recto of the leaf numbered 5", although technically not accurate, it is normal to say "on folio 5r". In everyday speech it is common to refer to "turning the pages of a book", although it would be more accurate to say "turning the leaves of a book"; this is the origin of the phrase "to turn over a new leaf" i.e. to start on a fresh blank page.
2. The recto side of a leaf faces left when the leaf is held straight up from the spine (in a paginated book this is usually an odd-numbered page).
3. The verso side of a leaf faces right when the leaf is held straight up from the spine (in a paginated book this is usually an even-numbered page).
4. A bifolium (often wrongly called a "bifolio", "bi-folio", or even "bifold") is a single sheet folded in half to make two leaves. The plural is "bifolia", not "bifolios".
5. A section, sometimes called a gathering, or, especially if unprinted, a quire,[22] is a group of bifolia nested together as a single unit.[23] In a completed book, each quire is sewn through its fold. Depending of how many bifolia a quire is made of, it could be called:[24]
- duernion – two bifolia, producing four leaves;
- ternion – three bifolia, producing six leaves;
- quaternion – four bifolia, producing eight leaves;
- quinternion – five bifolia, producing ten leaves;
- sextern or sexternion[25] – six bifolia, producing twelve leaves.
6. A codex is a series of one or more quires sewn through their folds, and linked together by the sewing thread.
7. A signature, in the context of printed books, is a section that contains text. Though the term signature technically refers to the signature mark, traditionally a letter or number printed on the first leaf of a section in order to facilitate collation, the distinction is rarely made today.[26]
8. Folio, quarto, and so on may also refer to the size of the finished book, based on the size of sheet that an early paper maker could conveniently turn out with a manual press. Paper sizes could vary considerably, and the finished size was also affected by how the pages were trimmed, so the sizes given are rough values only.
9. A folio volume is typically 15 in (38 cm) or more in height, the largest sort of regular book.
- A quarto volume is typically about 9 in (23 cm) by 12 in (30 cm), roughly the size of most modern magazines. A sheet folded in quarto (also 4to or 4º) is folded in half twice at right angles to make four leaves. Also called: eight-page signature.
- An octavo volume is typically about 5 to 6 in (13 to 15 cm) by 8 to 9 in (20 to 23 cm), the size of most modern digest magazines or trade paperbacks. A sheet folded in octavo (also 8vo or 8º) is folded in half 3 times to make 8 leaves. Also called: sixteen-page signature.
- A sextodecimo volume is about 4 1⁄2 in (11 cm) by 6 3⁄4 in (17 cm), the size of most mass market paperbacks. A sheet folded in sextodecimo (also 16mo or 16º) is folded in half 4 times to make 16 leaves. Also called: 32-page signature.
- Duodecimo or 12mo, 24mo, 32mo, and even 64mo are other possible sizes. Modern paper mills can produce very large sheets, so a modern printer will often print 64 or 128 pages on a single sheet.
10. Trimming separates the leaves of the bound book. A sheet folded in quarto will have folds at the spine and also across the top, so the top folds must be trimmed away before the leaves can be turned. A quire folded in octavo or greater may also require that the other two sides be trimmed. Deckle Edge, or Uncut books are untrimmed or incompletely trimmed, and may be of special interest to book collectors.
Typical Binds and there Uses:
Spiral Binding:
Similar to Wiro Binding, Spiral Binding attached the loose sheets by means of a plastic or metal plastic coil being passed through the punched holes. A wide range of coloured coils are available. Most commonly used for the production of very thick price lists, road atlases, reference manuals and training
manuals. Pages from spiral bound documents cannot come undone from the binding.
Comb Binding:
Again very similar to wiro binding, but instead uses a plastic comb instead of a wire. Mainly used for office documents.
Corner Stitch:
Definition: A method for binding loose sheets suitable for documents up to 3mm thick.
What is it used for?
Commonly used for hand outs, proposal documents etc
At What Point do we do it?
Corner Stitching is a print finishing process (after printing).
How do we do it?
The pages are collated in order and a single wire stitch (staple) is used to secure the document in the corner.
Stab Stitching:
Definition:
Stab Stitching is used mainly for office documents and in essence is two or more very strong, long staples that bind together loose sheets up to 25mm thick.
What is it used for?
Commonly used for Office stationery eg. NCR Pads, Purchase Order Pads, Invoice Pads, Sales Order Forms etc
At What Point do we do it?
Stab Stitching is a print finishing process (after printing).
How do we do it?
Loose sheets are collated, usually with a grey backboard and Manila top sheet, they are stab stitched with our stab stitching machine approx 8mm from the edge and to ensure the item is secure and presentable we then apply calico tape to the spine.
PUR Binding:
PUR binding is very similar to perfect binding. But uses a more durable and flexible glue. It is nearly impossible to remove pages from a PUR Bound book, and the spine doesn't deteriorate with age. Ideal for printed items that need to be durable reference tools - Catalogues, price lists, prospectus, brochures, town plans, parish plans etc
PUR Binding follows the exact same process except we change over the glue from Perfect Binding Adhesive to PUR Adhesive by exchanging the glue pots. PUR glue reacts with the moisture content in the paper. This chemical reation creates a much stronger bind than the conventional glue.
Loop Stitching (Loop stitch 2 wires, loop stitch 4 wires):
Definition:
Loop Stitching is a method of binding one or more printed sections together, with or without a cover, by means of loop wire staples (stitches) through the spine and centrefold. The loops enable the printed item to be inserted into a Ring Binder
What is it used for?
Commonly used for Brochures, Price Lists, Catalogues, Booklets, Newsletters, Parish Plans, Town Plans where they need to be inserted into 2 or 4 ring Ring Binders
At what point do we do it?
Loop Stitching is a print finishing process (after printing).
How do we do it?
Our Stitch Trimming machine will inset (gather) sections, stitch with the number and type of wire required and trim on 3 edges to the finished size.
Wiro Binding:
Definition:
A method for binding loose leaves using a series of metal wire loops formed from a single continuous wire run through punched holes on the binding edge.
What is it used for?
Commonly used for Price Lists, PLOF, Training Manuals, Calendars, Note Pads, Parish Plans, Town Plans
At what point do we do it?
Wiro Binding is a print finishing process (after printing).
How do we do it?
The pages are gathered in order, punched, and the metal wiro spine is inserted and clenched.
Saddle Stitching (Saddle Wire / Stitch Trim):
Definition
Saddle Stitching is a method of binding one or more printed sections together, with or without a cover, by means of wire staples (stitches) through the spine and centrefold. Otherwise known as Booklet Making or Stitched.
What is it used for?
Commonly used for Brochures, Annual Reports, Booklets, Newsletters, Price Lists, Catalogues, Parish Plans, Town Plans
At what point do we do it?
Saddle Stitching is a print finishing process (after printing).
How do we do it?
Our Stitch Trimming machine will inset (gather) sections, stitch with the number and type of wire required and trim on 3 edges to the finished size.
Perfect Bind:
Method of bookbinding where a flexible adhesive attaches a paper cover to the spine of the assembled signatures is called perfect binding.
Perfect binding puts all the pages or signatures together, roughens and flattens the edge, then a flexible adhesive attaches the paper cover to the spine. Paperback novels are one example of perfect binding.
Booklets, telephone directories, and some magazines use perfect binding methods. Compared to other binding methods, perfect binding is quite durable and has a low to medium cost. It can be used with publications that are several inches thick.
A variation of traditional perfect binding is lay-flat or Eurobind binding where the cover is glued only to the sides of the spine so that a perfect bound book can lay flat when open. Also, some books may combine glue with sewn together signatures.
Sewn with Drawn on Cover:
Definition:
This method of binding is very similar to perfect binding. However, the sections are gathered in order, sewn together using thread, adhesive applied to the sewn spine, and the cover attached (drawn on) and formed around the book. If the product needs to have inside paper from 130g we highly recommend to choose thread sewn binding.
What is it used for?
Ideal for printed items that need to be durable reference tools - Price Lists, Books, Prospectus, Brochures, Town Plans, Parish Plans etc
At What Point do we do it?
Sewn Binding is a print finishing process (after printing).
How do we do it?
This method of binding is very similar to perfect binding. But uses a more durable and flexible glue. It is nearly impossible to remove pages from a PUR Bound book, and the spine doesn't deteriorate with age. Ideal for printed items that need to be durable reference tools - Price Lists, Prospectus, Brochures, Town Plans, Parish Plans etc
Tuesday, 24 September 2013
OUGD601 // Dissertation // Publishing within Graphic Design
1. Graphic design has proved essential to every era of publishing history. Has that changed? A superficial argument could state that graphic design has been diminished by the web. But in fact it has been enhanced. Why? In previous publishing eras the quality of the content was of greater importance than the appearance of the content. On the web, appearance and usability are often of equal or greater importance than the content.
2. There is a direct correlation: a well-designed website, regardless of its other qualities or shortcomings, draws more visitors than one that is poorly-designed. Consider two websites of equal virtue in their content: the best-designed with the greatest ease-of-use will win the day. This is not esoteric; it’s dollars in the bank.
3. Designers who are drawn to the web are a hybrid. Some emerged from print publishing, some from multimedia, some from television and other broadcast media. The web demands the best from each and all of these design disciplines.
4. Designing and architecting effectively for the web is a relatively new skill and its requirements change almost daily. The best designers are being drawn to the web in unprecedented numbers because their skills, when used effectively on the web, generally pull in far better remuneration than they ever did in print (or other) media, while affording tougher challenges and greater career opportunities.
5. The individuals and organizations responsible for website management are increasingly recognizing the virtue of the skills of designers (and their agencies) and are more than willing to pay the going price for the best of breed.
6. One dark cloud currently on the horizon is the drop in employment for graphic designers, roughly 25% since 2006. This is covered in more detail below.
My prognosis for the future of design remains extremely positive: great design is going to ever-increasingly make an enormous difference to the future of communication in all media.
Introduction
Graphic design, long a core element in all media, has gained in significance with the advent of the Web. It brings with it hundreds of years of tradition and innovation from some of the most creative minds ever to have been involved in publishing in its so many varied forms. More so, while writing and publishing tend to be very culturally-specific, graphic design has long been informed with a remarkable international cross-fertilization of ideas and techniques that in turn have brought added richness to the publishing endeavor.
A small note of caution: I’ve no ability whatsoever in creating design or illustration. I am instead a long-time observer and buyer of design and illustration, both as a publisher and as a collector. So my perspective is that of a “consumer” not a practitioner. How this colors my perspective and commentary you will have to judge for yourself.
Underlying everything we read and see is graphic design: some terrible, much quite good, some great. Everything published must be designed, regardless of the medium: Even in the absence of a conscious design effort, graphic design is inherently a part of each published piece. There exists a fundamental graphic “language” of which the amateur is often consciously unaware but which informs all publications.
The graphic design industry, like all other sectors of the broad publishing industry, is facing huge challenges and undergoing great changes because of electronic media. Some abhor and fear those changes; others embrace them and thrive on the new world that awaits them. We are really just beginning to explore what will constitute effective graphic design in this emerging digital media era. The rules continue to be written.
The Essential Challenge of Graphic Design to the Future of Publishing
There are so many wonderful things about graphic design. At its best, graphic design can motivate people to do things, try things or make things that they never thought they would or could.
As its role is in the realm of the creative, design remains controversial. Like other art forms, the quality of graphic design is in the eye of the beholder. Graphic design can be extraordinarily beautiful. Sometimes we don’t even care what is being communicated, choosing instead to luxuriate in the sumptuousness of the brilliance and execution of the piece. But of course, as in other creative forms, there is a great deal of graphic design that is consciously or unconsciously referential to forms that have preceded it. There’s certainly nothing inherently wrong in this.
Originality in graphic design should perhaps be defined. I like this definition: “The quality of having been created without recognizable reference to other works” (taken from a site no longer available online!). When graphic design is original, it gains additional power to move the mind and the soul, regardless of the message.
In the pre-Internet era, graphic design, if not intended to motivate aesthetically, was often consciously asked to undertake the challenging task of motivate action from the viewer – obviously this was at the core of advertising, including direct mail.
So what’s the problem?
I believe that too many graphic designers confuse themselves with artists: “a person whose creative work shows sensitivity and imagination”. Showing sensitivity and imagination is all to the good. The problem for publishers is that graphic artists are employed for a specific task. That task is generally quite functional: to produce a piece of graphic communication, for print or digital media. Showing sensitivity and imagination is not in the core task description (it is, at best, a bonus). Most important is using graphic design to make the published piece easy-to-navigate, easy-to-understand, clear and legible. The role of “artist” is distinct from that of “graphic designer.”
But these roles can be very easily confused. And hence the problem. The same graphic designer who creates a clean and simple interior book design may be called upon to also create the cover. This often demands the skills of an artist, illustrator or photographer (sometimes working with the graphic designer). The same graphic designer who creates a clean and simple web site may be also be called upon to create the home page. This often demands the skills of an artist, and perhaps an information designer.
And so roles become easily confused. I think that one of the major problems confronting publishing today is helping graphic designers uncover their evolving roles, accept those roles, and successfully perform their new duties. The confusion is sometimes their fault. Just as often it is the fault of those who commission their work. They too often place excessive value on the “original” or the “distinct.”
Graphic design is essential to the future of publishing but its role and methods must change. Many graphic designers will require additional training, much of it in the broad area of information design/information architecture.
Graphic Design Reduced
I think that there is no graphic design as simple as the layout of the pages of a book that contains no illustrations. I’m referring to the average novel or book of narrative non-fiction.
The design rules for these pages are simple, straightforward, well-documented and well-accepted. I won’t repeat all of them here, but the most important rules in North America book publishing are:
1. The trim size of the hardcover book will often be 6″ by 9″ or, if a trade paperback, perhaps a little smaller, i.e. 5½″ by 8½″ (with minor trim-size variants sometimes demanded according to the presses and production method of the printer).
2. Pages will follow classic proportions in the arrangement of the blocks of text in relation to the overall page trim size. The amount of white space surrounding the text will be sufficient that the page does not appear crowded.
3. The typeface chosen for the text will be a serif face, one of perhaps a dozen or more that have been well-established for their readability over many pages of text. The size and leading of the text will be specified so as to ensure the least strain on the readers’ eyes, while respecting the publishers’ requirement to often minimize total page count for financial or production reasons.
4. There will be a folio (page number) on each page of the main body of the work, and, if appropriate, a running header to identify the chapter or section. This will generally appear on top of the text rather than at the bottom of the page (then called a “footer”).
I challenge the readers of this section to pull a dozen qualifying books off their shelves, and see how many of them conform to these simple rules. The result will, I think, be surprising – you’ll find a significant number of variances.
I’m always left asking myself the question: Why? Why did the designer decide to break these guidelines – perhaps to omit the running head, to choose a small typeface, or, worst of all, to set the book in a sans-serif typeface? Occasionally I’ll deduce a justification. Usually I’ll just shake my head in wonder.
Print design complexity increases across the publishing spectrum, into illustrated books, magazines, newspapers and advertising collateral. Regardless of the print form, the discriminating eye often stumbles on the pages in view. Too often I find myself asking the same question: Why? Why were these design choices made?
Having said this, I recognize also that graphic design is probably as close to an art form as any of the aspects of technology and craft that comprise the publishing industry. As I continue in my career to explore the possibilities of automated publishing, I’ve finally realized and learned to appreciate that design is art, and only repetitive graphic planning can work in the realm of automated publishing. That which is original in graphic design, and design generally, will always be what makes it most valuable. To grasp the future of publishing it’s essential to recognize that there will always be a range of expression that exists primarily in the creative sphere: not everything can be automated.
Web Design
Throw the search term “web design” onto Google and you’ll be rewarded with some 300 million entries. I guess we could say that the subject is well-covered, on the web at least.
There’s no question in my mind that the master of web design theory is Jakob Nielsen He just gets it. I don’t know Mr. Nielsen personally. Maybe he was an auto mechanic before he discovered the web. But he understands what is essential to web design like no other analyst before or since. He understands deeply how graphic design has changed with the advent of the web. Exploring this rich site is always stimulating and fun.
How has the web changed design and what does this mean to the future of publishing? Start with the fine article Nielsen wrote (in 1997!): “People rarely read Web pages word by word; instead, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences. In research on how people read websites we found that 79 percent of our test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word.”
I’ve searched multiple sources to find someone who says it better, without success. Nielsen makes the key point: the nature of reading on the web is significantly different than reading in print.
If the nature of reading on the web is significantly different than reading in print, it follows logically that writing for the web is a very different challenge than writing for print publication.
I think that writing and designing for the web must focus on “information architecture” and “information design,” rather than graphic design in its traditional sense. The objective is no longer to enhance the visual to “move” the audience, but rather to use graphics and text and spatial elements to help people quickly detect what it is you’re trying to communicate. In my seminars I talk about “information architects” rather than “graphic designers.” Many graphic designers fear that this advocates for the visually mundane. Instead it is an argument for the visually comprehensible, within the context of an altogether new publishing medium.
This web site is not an exemplar of that difference. The project began as a book. It took me (too) many years to realize that it would be more effective as a web site. I learned several lessons. The first was very basic: why write about the future of publishing and publish it as a book? I wasn’t merely concerned about the logical narrative structure of books, but even more so that they take a long time to get from the written page into readers’ hands, and that they are complex and expensive to update. Obviously the future of publishing is a constantly moving target, with fascinating and important new information made available daily, and I did not want to have to wait a year or more to update this material (assuming that the book sold well enough that the publisher was willing to invest in such frequent new editions).
More importantly, TheFutureofPublishing.com is really a guide to a wide range of information about publishing that is currently available in print and on the web. It’s always been of paramount importance to me to make my sources available. The web itself was obviously a preferable mechanism for readers to gain rapid access to my primary sources.
But, at the same time, my own writing originates from a logical, narrative style. This is not necessarily the best style for web users. For this I apologize: perhaps in the future I will create a version of the site that more closely matches Nielsen’s dictums, of which I fully approve. In the meantime you have before you a book-like construct, modified to take the best advantage I could of what the web affords.
2. There is a direct correlation: a well-designed website, regardless of its other qualities or shortcomings, draws more visitors than one that is poorly-designed. Consider two websites of equal virtue in their content: the best-designed with the greatest ease-of-use will win the day. This is not esoteric; it’s dollars in the bank.
3. Designers who are drawn to the web are a hybrid. Some emerged from print publishing, some from multimedia, some from television and other broadcast media. The web demands the best from each and all of these design disciplines.
4. Designing and architecting effectively for the web is a relatively new skill and its requirements change almost daily. The best designers are being drawn to the web in unprecedented numbers because their skills, when used effectively on the web, generally pull in far better remuneration than they ever did in print (or other) media, while affording tougher challenges and greater career opportunities.
5. The individuals and organizations responsible for website management are increasingly recognizing the virtue of the skills of designers (and their agencies) and are more than willing to pay the going price for the best of breed.
6. One dark cloud currently on the horizon is the drop in employment for graphic designers, roughly 25% since 2006. This is covered in more detail below.
My prognosis for the future of design remains extremely positive: great design is going to ever-increasingly make an enormous difference to the future of communication in all media.
Introduction
Graphic design, long a core element in all media, has gained in significance with the advent of the Web. It brings with it hundreds of years of tradition and innovation from some of the most creative minds ever to have been involved in publishing in its so many varied forms. More so, while writing and publishing tend to be very culturally-specific, graphic design has long been informed with a remarkable international cross-fertilization of ideas and techniques that in turn have brought added richness to the publishing endeavor.
A small note of caution: I’ve no ability whatsoever in creating design or illustration. I am instead a long-time observer and buyer of design and illustration, both as a publisher and as a collector. So my perspective is that of a “consumer” not a practitioner. How this colors my perspective and commentary you will have to judge for yourself.
Underlying everything we read and see is graphic design: some terrible, much quite good, some great. Everything published must be designed, regardless of the medium: Even in the absence of a conscious design effort, graphic design is inherently a part of each published piece. There exists a fundamental graphic “language” of which the amateur is often consciously unaware but which informs all publications.
The graphic design industry, like all other sectors of the broad publishing industry, is facing huge challenges and undergoing great changes because of electronic media. Some abhor and fear those changes; others embrace them and thrive on the new world that awaits them. We are really just beginning to explore what will constitute effective graphic design in this emerging digital media era. The rules continue to be written.
The Essential Challenge of Graphic Design to the Future of Publishing
There are so many wonderful things about graphic design. At its best, graphic design can motivate people to do things, try things or make things that they never thought they would or could.
As its role is in the realm of the creative, design remains controversial. Like other art forms, the quality of graphic design is in the eye of the beholder. Graphic design can be extraordinarily beautiful. Sometimes we don’t even care what is being communicated, choosing instead to luxuriate in the sumptuousness of the brilliance and execution of the piece. But of course, as in other creative forms, there is a great deal of graphic design that is consciously or unconsciously referential to forms that have preceded it. There’s certainly nothing inherently wrong in this.
Originality in graphic design should perhaps be defined. I like this definition: “The quality of having been created without recognizable reference to other works” (taken from a site no longer available online!). When graphic design is original, it gains additional power to move the mind and the soul, regardless of the message.
In the pre-Internet era, graphic design, if not intended to motivate aesthetically, was often consciously asked to undertake the challenging task of motivate action from the viewer – obviously this was at the core of advertising, including direct mail.
So what’s the problem?
I believe that too many graphic designers confuse themselves with artists: “a person whose creative work shows sensitivity and imagination”. Showing sensitivity and imagination is all to the good. The problem for publishers is that graphic artists are employed for a specific task. That task is generally quite functional: to produce a piece of graphic communication, for print or digital media. Showing sensitivity and imagination is not in the core task description (it is, at best, a bonus). Most important is using graphic design to make the published piece easy-to-navigate, easy-to-understand, clear and legible. The role of “artist” is distinct from that of “graphic designer.”
But these roles can be very easily confused. And hence the problem. The same graphic designer who creates a clean and simple interior book design may be called upon to also create the cover. This often demands the skills of an artist, illustrator or photographer (sometimes working with the graphic designer). The same graphic designer who creates a clean and simple web site may be also be called upon to create the home page. This often demands the skills of an artist, and perhaps an information designer.
And so roles become easily confused. I think that one of the major problems confronting publishing today is helping graphic designers uncover their evolving roles, accept those roles, and successfully perform their new duties. The confusion is sometimes their fault. Just as often it is the fault of those who commission their work. They too often place excessive value on the “original” or the “distinct.”
Graphic design is essential to the future of publishing but its role and methods must change. Many graphic designers will require additional training, much of it in the broad area of information design/information architecture.
Graphic Design Reduced
I think that there is no graphic design as simple as the layout of the pages of a book that contains no illustrations. I’m referring to the average novel or book of narrative non-fiction.
The design rules for these pages are simple, straightforward, well-documented and well-accepted. I won’t repeat all of them here, but the most important rules in North America book publishing are:
1. The trim size of the hardcover book will often be 6″ by 9″ or, if a trade paperback, perhaps a little smaller, i.e. 5½″ by 8½″ (with minor trim-size variants sometimes demanded according to the presses and production method of the printer).
2. Pages will follow classic proportions in the arrangement of the blocks of text in relation to the overall page trim size. The amount of white space surrounding the text will be sufficient that the page does not appear crowded.
3. The typeface chosen for the text will be a serif face, one of perhaps a dozen or more that have been well-established for their readability over many pages of text. The size and leading of the text will be specified so as to ensure the least strain on the readers’ eyes, while respecting the publishers’ requirement to often minimize total page count for financial or production reasons.
4. There will be a folio (page number) on each page of the main body of the work, and, if appropriate, a running header to identify the chapter or section. This will generally appear on top of the text rather than at the bottom of the page (then called a “footer”).
I challenge the readers of this section to pull a dozen qualifying books off their shelves, and see how many of them conform to these simple rules. The result will, I think, be surprising – you’ll find a significant number of variances.
I’m always left asking myself the question: Why? Why did the designer decide to break these guidelines – perhaps to omit the running head, to choose a small typeface, or, worst of all, to set the book in a sans-serif typeface? Occasionally I’ll deduce a justification. Usually I’ll just shake my head in wonder.
Print design complexity increases across the publishing spectrum, into illustrated books, magazines, newspapers and advertising collateral. Regardless of the print form, the discriminating eye often stumbles on the pages in view. Too often I find myself asking the same question: Why? Why were these design choices made?
Having said this, I recognize also that graphic design is probably as close to an art form as any of the aspects of technology and craft that comprise the publishing industry. As I continue in my career to explore the possibilities of automated publishing, I’ve finally realized and learned to appreciate that design is art, and only repetitive graphic planning can work in the realm of automated publishing. That which is original in graphic design, and design generally, will always be what makes it most valuable. To grasp the future of publishing it’s essential to recognize that there will always be a range of expression that exists primarily in the creative sphere: not everything can be automated.
Web Design
Throw the search term “web design” onto Google and you’ll be rewarded with some 300 million entries. I guess we could say that the subject is well-covered, on the web at least.
There’s no question in my mind that the master of web design theory is Jakob Nielsen He just gets it. I don’t know Mr. Nielsen personally. Maybe he was an auto mechanic before he discovered the web. But he understands what is essential to web design like no other analyst before or since. He understands deeply how graphic design has changed with the advent of the web. Exploring this rich site is always stimulating and fun.
How has the web changed design and what does this mean to the future of publishing? Start with the fine article Nielsen wrote (in 1997!): “People rarely read Web pages word by word; instead, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences. In research on how people read websites we found that 79 percent of our test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word.”
I’ve searched multiple sources to find someone who says it better, without success. Nielsen makes the key point: the nature of reading on the web is significantly different than reading in print.
If the nature of reading on the web is significantly different than reading in print, it follows logically that writing for the web is a very different challenge than writing for print publication.
I think that writing and designing for the web must focus on “information architecture” and “information design,” rather than graphic design in its traditional sense. The objective is no longer to enhance the visual to “move” the audience, but rather to use graphics and text and spatial elements to help people quickly detect what it is you’re trying to communicate. In my seminars I talk about “information architects” rather than “graphic designers.” Many graphic designers fear that this advocates for the visually mundane. Instead it is an argument for the visually comprehensible, within the context of an altogether new publishing medium.
This web site is not an exemplar of that difference. The project began as a book. It took me (too) many years to realize that it would be more effective as a web site. I learned several lessons. The first was very basic: why write about the future of publishing and publish it as a book? I wasn’t merely concerned about the logical narrative structure of books, but even more so that they take a long time to get from the written page into readers’ hands, and that they are complex and expensive to update. Obviously the future of publishing is a constantly moving target, with fascinating and important new information made available daily, and I did not want to have to wait a year or more to update this material (assuming that the book sold well enough that the publisher was willing to invest in such frequent new editions).
More importantly, TheFutureofPublishing.com is really a guide to a wide range of information about publishing that is currently available in print and on the web. It’s always been of paramount importance to me to make my sources available. The web itself was obviously a preferable mechanism for readers to gain rapid access to my primary sources.
But, at the same time, my own writing originates from a logical, narrative style. This is not necessarily the best style for web users. For this I apologize: perhaps in the future I will create a version of the site that more closely matches Nielsen’s dictums, of which I fully approve. In the meantime you have before you a book-like construct, modified to take the best advantage I could of what the web affords.
OUGD601 // Dissertation // History of Magazine Publishing
Beginnings in the 17th century
Though there may have been published material similar to a magazine in antiquity, especially perhaps in China, the magazine as it is now known began only after the invention of printing in the West. It had its roots in the spate of pamphlets, broadsides, ballads, chapbooks, and almanacs that printing made possible. Much of the energy that went into these gradually became channeled into publications that appeared regularly and collected a variety of material designed to appeal to particular interests. The magazine thus came to occupy the large middle ground, incapable of sharp definition, between the book and the newspaper.
The earliest magazine appears to have been the German Erbauliche Monaths-Unterredungen (1663–68; “Edifying Monthly Discussions”), started by Johann Rist, a theologian and poet of Hamburg. Soon after there appeared a group of learned periodicals: the Journal des Sçavans (later Journal des Savants; 1665), started in France by the author Denis de Sallo; the Philosophical Transactions (1665) of the Royal Society in England; and the Giornale de’ letterati (1668), published in Italy and issued by the scholar and ecclesiastic Francesco Nazzari. A similar journal was started in Germany a little later, the Acta eruditorum Lipsiensium (Leipzig; 1682); and mention may also be made of the exile-French Nouvelles de la République des Lettres (1684), published by the philosopher Pierre Bayle mainly in Holland to escape censorship. These sprang from the revival of learning, the need to review its fruits, and the wish to diffuse its spirit as widely as possible.
The learned journals summarized important new books, but there were as yet no literary reviews. Book advertisements, by about 1650 a regular feature of the newssheets, sometimes had brief comments added, and regular catalogs began to appear, such as the English quarterly Mercurius librarius, or A Catalogue of Books (1668–70). But in the 17th century the only periodicals devoted to books were short-lived: the Weekly Memorials for the Ingenious (1682–83), which offered some critical notes on books, and the Universal Historical Bibliothèque (January–March 1686). The latter invited scholarly contributions and could thus be regarded as the true forerunner of the literary review.
The lighter type of magazine, or “periodical of amusement,” may be dated from 1672, which saw the first appearance of Le Mercure Galant (renamed Mercure de France in 1714). It was founded by the writer Jean Donneau de Vizé and contained court news, anecdotes, and short pieces of verse—a recipe that was to prove endlessly popular and become widely imitated. This was followed in 1688 by a German periodical with an unwieldy title but one that well expressed the intention behind many a subsequent magazine: “Entertaining and Serious, Rational and Unsophisticated Ideas on All Kinds of Agreeable and Useful Books and Subjects.” It was issued in Leipzig by the jurist Christian Thomasius, who made a point of encouraging women readers. England was next in the field, with a penny weekly, the Athenian Gazette (better known later as the Athenian Mercury; 1690–97), run by a London publisher, John Dunton, to resolve “all the most Nice and Curious Questions.” Soon after came the Gentleman’s Journal (1692–94), started by the French-born Peter Anthony Motteux, with a monthly blend of news, prose, and poetry. In 1693, after devoting some experimental numbers of the Athenian Mercury to “the Fair Sex,” Dunton brought out the first magazine specifically for women, the Ladies’ Mercury. Finally, another note, taken up time and again later, was struck by The London Spy (1698–1700), issued by a tavern keeper, Ned Ward, and containing a running narrative of the sights and sounds of London.
Developments in the 18th century
Great Britain
With increasing literacy—especially among women—and a quickening interest in new ideas, the magazine filled out and became better established. In Britain, three early “essay periodicals” had enormous influence: Daniel Defoe’s The Review (1704–13; thrice weekly); Sir Richard Steele’s The Tatler (1709–11; thrice weekly), to which Joseph Addison soon contributed; and Addison and Steele’s The Spectator (1711–12, briefly revived in 1714; daily). Though they resembled newspapers in the frequency of their appearance, they were more like magazines in content. The Review introduced the opinion-forming political article on domestic and foreign affairs, while the cultivated essays of The Tatler and The Spectator, designed “to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality,” did much to shape the manners and taste of the age. The latter had countless imitators not only in Britain, where there were in addition the Female Tatler (1709–10) and the Female Spectator (1744–46), but also on the Continent and later in America. The Stamp Tax of 1712 had a damping effect, as intended, but magazines proved endlessly resilient, easy to start and easy to fail, then as now.
So far various themes had been tried out; they were first brought together convincingly by the English printer Edward Cave, who began to publish The Gentleman’s Magazine in 1731. It was originally a monthly collection of essays and articles culled from elsewhere, hence the term magazine—the first use of the word in this context. Cave was joined in 1738 by Dr. Johnson, who was later to publish his own Rambler (1750–52); thereafter The Gentleman’s Magazine contained mostly original matter, including parliamentary reports. Rivals and imitators quickly followed, notably the London Magazine (1732–85) and the Scots Magazine (1739–1817; to 1826 published as the Edinburgh Magazine); and, among the increasing number of women’s periodicals, there were a Ladies’ Magazine (1749–53) and a Lady’s Magazine (1770–1832). Their progenitor, however, outlived them all and perished only in 1907.
The literary and political rivalries of the day produced numerous short-lived periodicals, from which the critical review emerged as an established form. Robert Dodsley, a London publisher, started the Museum (1746–47), devoted mainly to books, and Ralph Griffiths, a Nonconformist bookseller, founded The Monthly Review (1749–1845), which had the novelist and poet Oliver Goldsmith as a contributor. To oppose the latter on behalf of the Tories and the Church of England, The Critical Review (1756–1817) was started by an Edinburgh printer, Archibald Hamilton, with the novelist Tobias Smollett as its first editor. Book reviews tended to be long and fulsome, with copious quotations; a more astringent note came in only with the founding of the Edinburgh Review in 1802.
The 19th century and the start of mass circulation
General Periodicals
Most of the early periodicals were designed for the few who could afford them and can be fairly called “quality” magazines. In the 1830s, however, less expensive magazines, aimed at a wider public, began to appear. At first these magazines emphasized features that promoted improvement, enlightenment, and family entertainment, but, toward the end of the century, they evolved into popular versions that aimed at providing amusement.
The pioneers of the new type of magazine in Britain were Charles Knight, publisher for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, with his weekly Penny Magazine (1832–46) and Penny Cyclopaedia (1833–58); the Chambers brothers, William and Robert, with Chambers’s (Edinburgh) Journal (1832–1956), which reached a circulation of 90,000 in 1845; and teetotaler John Cassell, with his Working Man’s Friend and Family Instructor (1850–53) and the Quiver (1861). Besides popular magazines, many standard works appeared serially, often with illustrations. Typical of family entertainment were Charles Dickens’ Household Words (1850), followed in 1859 by All the Year Round; several similar periodicals such as Good Words (1860); and, for young people, the Boy’s Own Paper (1879) and the Girl’s Own Paper (1880). Germany had its Pfennigmagazin (1833), edited by Johann Jakob Weber, and a family magazine modeled on that of Dickens. One example was the Gartenlaube (1853–1937; “Arbour”), which enjoyed great popular influence and a circulation of 400,000 in the 1870s. There were no national magazines in the United States before about 1850, but two of its best-known early periodicals were the Saturday Evening Post (1821–1969; revived 1971) and Youth’s Companion (1827–1929). The latter, published in Boston, was typically wholesome in content, intended to “warn against the ways of transgression” and to encourage “virtue and piety.”
By the last quarter of the century, largely as a result of compulsory education, the potential market for magazines had greatly increased, and the public was avid for miscellaneous information and light entertainment. The first man in Britain to discover this was George Newnes, who liked snipping out any paragraph that appealed to him. In 1881 he turned his hobby to advantage by publishing a penny magazine, Tit-Bits from all the Most Interesting Books, Periodicals and Contributors in the World, soon shortened to Tit-Bits (in 1968 restyled Titbits). It was a great success and formed the beginning of a publishing empire that was to include Country Life (founded 1897), Wide World Magazine (1898), and, above all, The Strand Magazine (1891–1950), one of the first monthly magazines of light literature with plenty of illustrations. The Strand became enormously popular and is perhaps most famous for its Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. Among the early contributors to Tit-Bits was Alfred Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe), who had an appetite for odd bits of information similar to that of Newnes. In 1888, after editing Youth and Bicycling News, Harmsworth launched a rival to Tit-Bits called Answers to Correspondents, or Answers, which he successfully promoted by contests. Within five years he produced a string of inexpensive magazines for the same popular market, including Comic Cuts and Home Chat. A similar empire was built up by Arthur Pearson, another former Tit-Bits employee, with Pearson’s Weekly and Home Notes, among others.
In the United States, magazine publishing boomed as part of the general expansion after the Civil War. It was also helped by favourable postal rates for periodicals (1879). But a gulf remained between expensive magazines aimed at the genteel, such as Harper’s and Scribner’s (see below Literary and scientific magazines), and cheaper weeklies and miscellanies. The first person to produce a popular monthly to fill this gap and thus spark off a revolution in the industry was Samuel Sidney McClure, who began publishing McClure’s Magazine in 1893, which he sold for 15 cents an issue instead of the usual 25 or 35 cents. John Brisben Walker, who was building up Cosmopolitan (founded 1886) after acquiring it in 1889, cut his price to 12 1/2 cents, and in October 1893 Frank A. Munsey reduced the price of Munsey’s Magazine (1889–1929) to 10 cents. All three saw that, by keeping down the price and gearing contents to the interests and problems of the average reader, high circulations were attainable. Munsey estimated that, between 1893 and 1899, “the ten-cent magazine increased the magazine-buying public from 250,000 to 750,000 persons.” This increase in circulation in turn led to high advertising revenue, making it possible to sell a magazine, like a newspaper, for less than its cost of production, a practice that was to become common in the next century. Technical development was also important; mass-production methods and the use of photoengraving processes for illustration enabled attractive magazines to be produced at ever lower unit costs.
The first magazine published in Australia was the Australian Magazine, which began in 1821 and lasted for 13 monthly issues. The South Asian Register began as a quarterly in 1827 but only four issues appeared. The Hobart Town Magazine (1833–34) survived a bit longer and contained stories, poems, and essays by Australian writers. The Sydney Literary News (1837) was the first to contain serial fiction and advertisements. Illustrations were introduced in the 1840s; the Australian Gold Digger’s Monthly Magazine and Colonial Family Visitor (1852–53) was followed by the Melbourne Punch (1855–1925; incorporated in Table Talk, 1885–1937).
In India the first magazines were published by the British. The earliest to appear was the Oriental Magazine; or, Calcutta Amusement (1785–86); it was followed by a number of short-lived missionary publications. The first periodical founded and edited by an Indian was the Hindustan Review, which commenced in 1900.
Missionaries founded the first periodical in China; printed in Malacca, the Chinese Monthly Magazine lasted from 1815 to 1822. It was followed by the East-West Monthly Magazine, printed in Canton from 1833 to 1837 and in Singapore from 1837 until its end in 1847.
Illustrated Magazines
The first man in Britain to notice the effect of illustrations on sales and grasp their possibilities was a newsagent in Nottingham, Herbert Ingram, who moved to London in 1842 and began publishing The Illustrated London News, a weekly consisting of 16 pages of letterpress and 32 woodcuts. It was successful from the start, winning the approval of the Archbishop of Canterbury and hence that of the clerical public. Though it suffered at first from the defect that its pictures were by well-known artists but were not taken from life, it later sent artists all over the world. Drawings made on the spot during the South African War, sometimes at considerable risk, were a great popular feature. Among its competitors was the monthly English Illustrated Magazine (1883–1913).
The idea of presenting the news largely in pictures was quickly taken up in France by L’Illustration (1843–1944) and in Germany by the Leipziger illustrierte Zeitung (1843) and Die Woche (1899–1940).
In the United States, the main early illustrated magazines were Leslie’s Weekly (1855–1922) and Harper’s Weekly (1857). Soon after its founding, Leslie’s had a circulation of 100,000, which doubled or trebled whenever there was something sensational to portray. During the Civil War, of which it gave a good pictorial record, it had as many as 12 correspondents at the front.
The invention of photography and the development of the halftone block began to transform this type of magazine from the 1890s, with the artist increasingly being displaced by the camera.
Women's Magazines
Women’s magazines frequently reflect the changing view of women’s role in society. In the 18th century, when women were expected to participate in social and political life, those magazines aimed primarily at women were relatively robust and stimulating in content; in the 19th, when domesticity became the ideal, they were inclined to be insipid and humourless. After about 1880, magazines began to widen their horizons again.
Typical of the late Georgian and Regency magazines in Britain were The Lady’s Magazine (1770), a sixpenny monthly that, along with its literary contributions and fashion notes, gave away embroidery patterns and sheet music; The Lady’s Monthly Museum (1798), which had a half-yearly “Cabinet of Fashion” illustrated by coloured engravings, the first to appear in a women’s periodical; and La Belle Assemblée (1806), which encouraged its readers to unburden themselves in its correspondence columns. These three merged in 1832, the first instance of what was to become a common occurrence, but ceased publication in 1847. Later women’s magazines included The Ladies’ Pocket Magazine (1824–40), The Ladies’ Cabinet (1832–52), The New Monthly Belle Assemblée (1847–70), and The Ladies’ Treasury (1857–95). All contained verse, fiction, and articles of high moral tone but low intellectual content. There were attempts to swim against the tide, such as The Female’s Friend (1846), which was one of the first periodicals to espouse women’s rights, but they seldom lasted long.
In 1852 a wider market began to be tapped by The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine, a monthly issued by Samuel Beeton at twopence instead of the usual one shilling; it was also the first women’s periodical to concentrate on home management and offer practical advice to women rather than provide entertainment for the idle. Beeton’s wife (author of the classic Book of Household Management, 1861) visited Paris regularly and acquired fashion plates from Adolphe Goubaud’s Moniteur de la Mode. A feature of Beeton’s magazine was the “Practical Dress Instructor,” a forerunner of the paper dressmaking pattern. In 1861, Beeton followed up his success with The Queen, a weekly newspaper of more topical character.
The great expansion of women’s magazines into a major industry may be dated in Britain from Myra’s Journal of Dress and Fashion (1875–1912) and Weldon’s Ladies’ Journal (1875–1954), both of which supplied dressmaking patterns and met the needs of a mass readership. Several new quality magazines were started, such as The Lady (founded 1885) and The Gentlewoman (1890–1926), one of the first to acknowledge the financial necessity of advertisements, but there were many more cheap weeklies, such as Home Notes (1894–1957), Home Chat (1895–1958), and Home Companion (1897–1956); these were of great help in teaching women about hygiene, nutrition, and child care.
Among the earliest women’s magazines in the United States was a monthly published in Philadelphia called Godey’s Lady’s Book (1830–98), which employed up to 150 women to hand-tint its fashion plates. Of the early national magazines, one of the best and hardiest was Harper’s Bazar (1867; Harper’s Bazaar after 1929), modeled on a Berlin women’s periodical, Der Bazar, from which it obtained its fashion material. The practical trend was begun in 1863 by Ebenezer Butterick, who devised the tissue-paper clothing pattern and, to popularize it, brought out the Ladies’ Quarterly Review of Broadway Fashions and, later, Metropolitan. These merged in 1873 into the Delineator, which had a highly successful career until 1937. The field of women’s magazines was finally transformed, however, by Cyrus Curtis with his Ladies’ Home Journal (founded 1883), edited by his wife, Louisa Knapp Curtis. This soon reached a circulation of 400,000 and, under the editorship of Edward W. Bok, from 1889, broke with sentimentality and piety to become a stimulating journal of real service to women. Other popular magazines were Ladies’ Home Companion (1886; called Woman’s Home Companion, 1897–1957), McCall’s Magazine (founded 1897), and Pictorial Review (1899–1939). Two requiring special mention were Good Housekeeping (founded 1885), which established a testing station for consumer goods early in the 20th century, and Vogue (founded 1892), a fashion weekly (later a monthly) dedicated to “the ceremonial side of life,” which was designed for the elite of New York City and had Cornelius Vanderbilt among its backers.
Literary and Scientific Magazines
The critical review developed strongly in the 19th century, often as an adjunct to a book-publishing business. It became a forum for the questions of the day—political, literary, and artistic—to which many great figures contributed. There were also many magazines with a literary flavour, and these serialized some of the best fiction of the period. A few marked the beginning of specialization—e.g., in science.
Britain was particularly rich in reviews, beginning with the Edinburgh Review (1802–1929), founded by a trio of gifted young critics: Francis Jeffrey, Henry Brougham, and Sydney Smith. The high and independent tone they adopted was said by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to mark an “epoch in periodical criticism.” Though Tories, including at first Sir Walter Scott, wrote for it, the Edinburgh Review gradually became increasingly Whig in attitude. Scott accordingly transferred his allegiance to the Quarterly Review (1809–1967), the Edinburgh Review’s Tory rival, founded by the London publisher John Murray and first edited by William Gifford. Gifford had previously edited The Anti-Jacobin (1797–98), with which such figures as the Tory statesman George Canning were associated. In opposition to these, and more political than any of them, was the Westminster Review (1824–1914), started by Jeremy Bentham and James Mill as an organ of the philosophical radicals. Two other early reviews were the Athenaeum (1828–1921), an independent literary weekly, and the Spectator (founded 1828), a nonpartisan but conservative-leaning political weekly that nonetheless supported parliamentary reform and the cause of the North in the American Civil War. Later reviews included the Saturday Review (1855–1938), which had George Bernard Shaw and Max Beerbohm as drama critics (1895–1910); the Fortnightly Review (1865–1954), which had the Liberal statesman John Morley as editor (1867–83); the Contemporary Review (founded 1866); the Nineteenth Century (1877; later the Twentieth Century, until it closed in 1974); and W.T. Stead’s Review of Reviews (1890–1936), a more limited version of Reader’s Digest.
Scholarly Journals
The publishing of scholarly journals, begun in the 17th century, expanded greatly in the 19th as fresh fields of inquiry opened up or old ones were further divided into specialties. Numerous learned societies were formed in such fields as classical studies, biblical studies, archaeology, philology, Egyptology, the Orient, and all the branches into which science was dividing, and each society published a regular bulletin, proceedings, or “transactions,” which enabled scholars to keep in touch with what others were doing. In the sober pages of these journals, seldom read by the general public, some of the most far-reaching discoveries were first made known. Among the many notable publications were Annali del Istituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica (1829), the Revue Archéologique (founded 1844), Philologus (1846), Mind (founded 1876), the Journal of Hellenic Studies (founded 1880), the American Journal of Philology (founded 1880), the Asiatic Quarterly (1886; later called South Asian Review), the Geographical Journal (1893), and an interesting informal aid to scholars, Notes and Queries (1849), with the motto: “When found, make a note of.” In every advanced country the professions too began to have journals, such as medicine’s Lancet (founded 1823), in Britain, originally started to attack abuses in hospital administration; the Mining Journal (founded 1835); the British Medical Journal (founded 1840); The Engineer (founded 1856); and the Solicitors’ Journal (founded 1857), to cite only a few examples. In the course of time, these developed endless technical ramifications. The economics of all such journals are based on necessity. Though their circulation is small, anyone working in a particular field generally subscribes to them or at least has access to them in appropriate libraries. They can be described as reference books in installments.
The 20th century
The advertising Revolution in Popular Magazines
There was a certain resistance to advertising in magazines, in keeping with their literary affinities. When the advertisement tax in Britain was repealed in 1853 and more advertising began to appear, the Athenaeum thought fit to say: “It is the duty of an independent journal to protect as far as possible the credulous, confiding and unwary from the wily arts of the insidious advertiser.” In the United States many magazines, such as Harper’s, took a high line with would-be advertisers until the 1880s; and Reader’s Digest, with its mammoth circulation, admitted advertisements to its American edition only in 1955. Yet today some sectors of the magazine industry are dominated by advertising, and few are wholly free from its influence.
Magazine Advertising Economics
In the United States Cyrus Curtis showed what could be achieved in attracting advertising revenue with the Saturday Evening Post. He bought the magazine for $1,000 in 1897, when it was on its last legs, and invested $1,250,000 of his profits from the Ladies’ Home Journal before it finally caught on. But when it did, through an appeal based on well-founded stories and articles about the business world, a prime interest at the time, its success was enormous; by 1922 it had a circulation of more than 2,000,000 and an advertising revenue in excess of $28,000,000. It was a classic demonstration of modern magazine economics: as circulation rose in the initial phase of low advertising rates, money had to be poured in to meet the cost of producing more copies; but, as soon as high advertising rates could be justified by a high circulation, profitability was assured. Conversely, when high rates are maintained on a falling circulation, it is the advertisers who lose, until they withdraw their support.
Once circulation figures became all-important, advertisers naturally asserted their right to verify them. The first attempt, made in 1899 by the Association of American Advertisers, only lasted until 1913, but fresh initiatives in 1914 created the Audit Bureau of Circulation. Though resented at first by publishers, it was eventually seen as a guarantee of their claims. Interest in circulation led publishers into market research. The first organization for this purpose was set up by the Curtis Publishing Company in 1911; but such research did not become general until the 1930s. Reader research, to ascertain what readers wanted from magazines, was also developed in the 1930s and proved to be a useful tool, though no substitute for editorial flair. As was once observed by the features editor of Vogue: “If we find out what people want, it’s already too late.”
Thus the popular magazine in the United States, expanding with the economy, became part of the marketing system. By 1900 advertisements might form up to 50 percent of its contents; by 1947, the proportion was more often 65 percent. A proprietor was no longer just selling attractive editorial matter to a segment of the public; he was also selling a well-charted segment of the public to the advertiser. Though the process was most pronounced in the United States, a vast country where, in the absence of national newspapers, national magazines had a special function, the same principles came to apply, in varying degrees, in Europe.
The effects of advertising on the appearance of the magazine have been, on the whole, stimulating. At the turn of the century, advertisements began to move forward from the back pages into greater prominence among the editorial matter, and this was often regretted by readers. At the same time, advertising agencies were developing from mere space sellers into copywriters and designers; their efforts to produce work of high visual appeal forced editors to make their own editorial typography and layout more attractive. The use of colour, in particular, was greatly fostered by advertisers once they discovered its effectiveness. In the 1880s colour printing was rare, but, after the development of the multicolour rotary press in the 1890s, it steadily became more common. By 1948 nearly half the advertising pages of the leading American magazines were in two or more colours.
The effect of advertising on editorial content is harder to analyze. Advertisers have not been slow to exercise financial pressure and have often succeeded in suppressing material or modifying policy. In 1940, for instance, Esquire lost its piano advertisements after publishing an article recommending the guitar for musical accompaniment; six months later it tried to win them back with a rueful editorial apology. Yet many magazines, notably the Saturday Evening Post, Time, and The New Yorker, have persistently asserted editorial independence. Something like a balance of power has come into being, which can tip either way. What can safely be said is that advertising pressure as a whole has been a socially conservative force, playing on conformity, inclining magazines to work on the principle of “minimum offense,” and holding them back from radical editorial departures until they are clearly indicated by changes in public taste. This has tended to make the large-circulation magazine an exploiter rather than a discoverer of fresh talent or new ideas. Yet in the last analysis, advertisers have been forced to recognize that magazines, like newspapers, cannot forgo too much of their independence without forfeiting the loyalty of their readers and hence their value as an advertising medium.
Advertising in Britain and Europe
Though the advertising revolution began in Britain at much the same time as in the United States, its course has been less explosive. By 1898, The Gentlewoman was pointing out in its first issue that every copy cost “nearly double the price for which it is sold.” Yet Britain’s Audit Bureau of Circulations was not set up until 1931, and membership remained small until the 1960s; for it was only then that consumer spending in Britain (and hence advertising) really began to soar, to be reflected in a boom in women’s magazines. In the early part of the century, the old general magazines continued to flourish, with such additions as the Windsor Magazine (1895–1939), Pearson’s Magazine (1896–1909), Argosy (founded 1926), which published only fiction, and the popular weekly John Bull (1906–64), which thrived on “revelations.” Several American magazines, especially women’s, began to come out in British editions, such as Vogue (1916), Good Housekeeping (1922), and Harper’s Bazaar (1929; in 1970 amalgamated with Queen as Harpers & Queen). Society periodicals lost ground after World War I to those catering to the so-called new poor and new rich, although snobbery still proved a lucrative element in magazine publishing, notably with the Tatler, which became highly successful under a new editor in the early 1980s. The fortnightly Queen, Woman’s Weekly (founded 1911), and the monthly Woman and Home (founded 1926) and Woman’s Journal (founded 1927) were joined by such popular weeklies as Woman’s Own (founded 1932), Woman’s Illustrated (1936–61), and, above all, Woman (founded 1937), the first to be printed by colourgravure. During World War II some of these magazines gave valuable practical advice on how to cope with shortages. In postwar Britain magazines began to be distributed through retail outlets—mostly supermarkets—other than bookshops or newsagents. The chief examples were Family Circle (founded 1964), an Anglo-American production, and its sister publication, Living (founded 1967). The trend toward youthful markets was indicated by She (founded 1955), broad and robust in outlook; Honey (founded 1960); Annabel (founded 1966), for younger married women in particular; Petticoat (1966–75), for girls 14 to 19 years old; and 19 (1968), a market leader. The death of many of the old general magazines, under the pressure of paperbacks and television, and the dearth of illustrated weeklies (see below Picture magazines) left room for a new advertising vehicle. The first to perceive this was Lord Thomson, who in 1962 brought out a colour magazine as supplement to the Sunday Times (London). Its eventual success forced the Observer and the Daily Telegraph to follow suit (the colour supplement was eventually removed from the latter paper and issued instead with its sister publication, the Sunday Telegraph). In the early 1980s the popular Sunday papers also started supplements.
In the rest of Europe the impact of advertising on magazines has been more delayed and less pronounced, partly because market prices of continental magazines tend to be closer to the production cost. General magazines were fairly limited before World War II, but since then, as part of the economic expansion, there has been a rich crop, including many newsmagazines similar to Time and Life and also a number of magazines for women. France has several of the latter with large circulations, including Nous Deux, Elle, and Intimité, while those in Germany include entries for all age groups, such as Jasmin for newlyweds and Eltern for parents. Though the northern European countries have fewer periodicals, it is worth noting that in Finland Pirkka, a giveaway distributed through grocery stores, achieved one of the largest magazine circulations.
News and Photo Magazines
The accelerated tempo of life in the 20th century, coupled with the bewildering amount of information appearing in print, suggested the need for more concise ways of presenting it. The first to show how it could be done and so give rise to a whole new class of periodical was the U.S. newsmagazine Time, founded in 1923 by Briton Hadden and Henry Luce.
Time Magazine
There had, of course, been newsmagazines before, in both Europe and the United States. Time magazine’s immediate forerunner was the Pathfinder (1894–1954), a weekly rewriting of the news for rural readers. There had also been attempts at compression of the digest type (see below Digests and pocket magazines). But Time was the first to aim at a brief and systematic presentation of the whole of the world’s news. It was based on the proposition that “people are uninformed because no publication has adapted itself to the time which busy men are able to spend simply keeping informed.” Its beginning was amateurish and precarious; neither Hadden nor Luce had much experience when they started summarizing the news from bundles of daily papers (copyright provisions on newspapers allowing this use). But after 1928 it grew steadily, finding its market chiefly among the rising number of college graduates. What came to be known as the Time style was characterized, in the words of a later critic, by two great democratic ideals, disrespect for authority and reverence for success. Time presented the news in tightly packed sentences, well researched and checked, and with a general air of omniscience. In the 1930s, to ensure adequate sources of information, Time Inc. built up a large news-gathering organization of its own. It also branched out into other publications, including Fortune (founded 1930), summarizing business news, Life (see below), and People, a weekly begun in 1974.
Picture Magazines
Conciseness can also be achieved through pictures, which obviate the need for description. Illustrated newsmagazines began in the 19th century, but they took an altogether new form as photography developed. The most influential, though by no means the first of the modern type, was undoubtedly the American weekly Life (1936–72), started by Henry Luce.
Pictorial journalism grew up alongside advertising techniques, the tabloid, and the documentary film. Modern cameras enabled top-grade photographs to be taken quickly under almost any conditions. Photojournalists were particularly active in Germany, until many had to flee the Nazis. One of them was the Hungarian Stefan Lorant, who developed the photo essay (a story reported through pictures) with Bilder Courier in Berlin in 1926 and with the Münchener illustrierte Presse in the period 1927–33. He then went to Britain, where he started a pocket picture magazine, Lilliput (1937–60), and was the first editor of Picture Post (1938–57). Another pioneer was a German, Erich Salomon, who became celebrated for his photographs of the famous, particularly politicians, in unguarded moments. Salomon’s pictures in the London Tatler in 1928 prompted Fortune to invite him to the United States, where he inspired the Life photographer Thomas McAvoy.
In November 1936, therefore, when Life first appeared, picture magazines were already fairly common. Only a month before, Mid-Week Pictorial (1914–37), an American weekly of news pictures, had been restyled along the lines Life was to take, but Life quickly overwhelmed it. Though expected to have a circulation of well under 500,000 copies, Life was running at 1,000,000 within weeks. Its first issue, 96 large pages of pictures on glossy paper for 10 cents, was a sellout, the opening picture brilliant: an obstetrician holding a newborn baby, with the caption “Life begins.” Over the years, it kept the promise of its prospectus: “To see life; to see the world; to witness great events; to watch the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud; to see strange things. . . .” During World War II, which it covered with great accomplishment, it enlarged its operations with a fortnightly international edition, and in 1952 a Spanish-language edition was added for Latin America, Life en Español. In 1971 Life magazine’s circulation was about 7,000,000, but its high costs were no longer being met by advertising income, and it ceased publication in December 1972; it was revived as a monthly in October 1978.
Digests and Pocket Magazines
Readers Digest
The need for concise reading matter, so well met by Time and Life, was met even more successfully, in terms of circulation, by an American magazine that reprinted in condensed form articles from other periodicals. This was the pocket-size Reader’s Digest, founded in 1922 by DeWitt Wallace.
Its forerunners in the United States were the Literary Digest (1890–1938), started by two former Lutheran ministers, Isaac K. Funk and Adam W. Wagnalls; the Review of Reviews (1890–1937), founded by Albert Shaw to condense material about world affairs; and Frank Munsey’s Scrap Book (1906–12), “a granary for the gleanings of literature.” The Literary Digest, in particular, with a circulation of more than 1,000,000 in the early 1920s, was something of an American institution. Its famous straw votes successfully predicted the result of the presidential elections after 1920, and its highly publicized wrong prediction of the outcome of the 1936 election played a decisive part in its collapse. Reader’s Digest, however, was more specific in content and more universal in appeal. It aimed to supply “An article a day from leading magazines in condensed, permanent, booklet form.” Each article, moreover, satisfied three criteria: “applicability” (it had to be of concern to the average reader); “lasting interest” (it had to be readable a year later); and “constructiveness” (it had to be on the side of optimism and good works).
After three years’ preparation, Wallace began to produce the magazine (first issue February 1922) from a basement office in New York City. After a year, subscriptions were running at about 7,000. In 1939, when circulation had reached 3,000,000, Reader’s Digest moved into large premises at nearby Chappaqua. Until 1930 it was produced entirely by amateurs. Condensed books began to be added at the end of the magazine in 1934, and from this grew the Reader’s Digest Condensed Book Club, with 2,500,000 members four years later. Overseas editions were started in 1939 (British), and foreign-language editions in 1940 (Spanish), others being steadily added over the following 10 years. In the late 1980s, Reader’s Digest had one of the largest circulations of any magazine in the world.
Specialised Magazines
Though general magazines have the largest circulations, most magazines cater to specialist interests or pursuits. Circulation varies, but, even where it is small, it is usually stable over the short term and offers an advertiser a well-defined market. Such magazines may be broadly classified into professional (including trade and technical) and nonprofessional journals.
Professional Types
The professional magazine, often the organ of an association, keeps members informed of the latest developments, helps them to maintain standards, and defends their interests. Some were started in the 19th century, but specialization and different viewpoints within specialties have encouraged proliferation. Instead of two or three medical journals, for instance, there are now likely to be dozens, besides those in specialized areas such as dentistry, ophthalmology, and psychiatry. Though most of these magazines are of little interest to the general public, a few print authoritative articles of broader scope.
Trade and technical journals serve those working in industry and commerce. They too have grown enormously in numbers. Major discoveries in science, manufacturing methods, or business practice tend to create a new subdivision of technology, with its own practitioners and, more often than not, its own magazine. Articles in these magazines tend to be highly factual and accurately written, by people deeply immersed in their subjects. Most are well produced, often on art paper for the sake of the illustrations, and heavily dependent on advertising. Indeed, many are issued for a controlled circulation; i.e., a publisher undertakes to distribute a magazine free of charge to a given number of specialist concerns, which can be relied upon to want a certain range of products. The manufacturers of these products, for their part, are naturally glad to have an advertising medium guaranteed to reach their particular market. The business papers may lack glamour, but they play a vital and highly influential part in economic life.
Non-Professional Types
Of the nonprofessional magazines, quite a number serve broad interest groups, religious, political, or social. Most religious denominations have journals, often more than one. Though some of these magazines are subsidized as part of a drive to spread their message, most of them merely aim to foster corporate feeling among coreligionists. Much the same applies to political magazines in the narrow sense—i.e., where they are issued by political organizations: they discuss doctrine, give news of activities, and forge links among members. Political discussion on less partisan matters and in a less partisan tone tends to take place in more general magazines. Certain periodicals spring from the needs of particular groups, an example being student magazines.
Specialized magazines for the layman may fall into the hobby category. Very often a professional magazine has an amateur counterpart, as, for instance, in electronics, where the amateur finds a wide range of technical magazines on radio, television, hi-fi, and tape recording. Other popular subjects are photography (the British Amateur Photographer was founded in 1884) and motoring (Hearst’s Motor was founded, as Motor Cycling and Motoring, in 1902); specialization even extends to types of camera and makes of car. Virtually no hobby or sport is without its magazine. As soon as any activity becomes sufficiently popular, a magazine appears to cater to its adherents and to provide an advertising medium, not only for manufacturers and suppliers but also for readers, to help them buy and sell secondhand equipment, for instance.
Some special tastes in entertainment are met by the “pulp” and “comic” magazines. In 1896 Frank Munsey turned his Argosy into an all-fiction magazine using rough wood-pulp paper. The “dime novel” did not qualify for inexpensive postal rates in the United States, but the pulp magazine did, and so an industry was born. Pulps began as adventure magazines but soon split up into further categories: love, detective, and western. Such magazines sold in the millions up to the mid-1930s, when they gradually lost ground to the comics. These began as collections reprinted from the comic strips in newspapers; the first to appear regularly was Famous Funnies (1934). After 1937, however, with Detective Comics, they came into their own as original publications, and, like the pulps, they grew into a major industry, dividing up into much the same types. They may be seen, in effect, as pictorial condensations of the pulps. Though mainly for children, they were widely read by adults. “Comic” rapidly became a misnomer, as they played increasingly on horror and violence. While some defended them as harmless and even cathartic, others condemned them as incitements to imitation. Attempts at control were made through legislation in the United States and elsewhere, and the industry itself tried to set standards. Television has since drawn much of the criticism, and the demand, to itself, but comics remain big business. One type of magazine, originally classed as pulp but attaining with the years a certain respectability, is the science-fiction magazine, the first example of which was Hugo Gernsback’s Amazing Stories, first published in 1926.
The “fan” magazines offer glimpses of life behind the scenes in the world of entertainment and sport. In the heyday of motion pictures, many magazines on films and their stars appeared, beginning with Photoplay (1911–77) and Picture Play (1915) and later others, such as Movie Mirror (1930) and Movieland (1942). When radio and television became popular, similar magazines sprang up centring on programs and their personalities. One of their functions was to provide a weekly timetable of programs.
Finally, there are a number of “special service” magazines—e.g., financial magazines to help the private investor, magazines of advice issued by consumer associations, magazines specifically for house hunters, racegoers, or for trading in secondhand goods, and so on.
Britain
Many of the British reviews founded in the 19th century have continued to flourish. Among additions of the scholarly type were the Hibbert Journal (1902–70), a nonsectarian quarterly for the discussion of religion, philosophy, sociology, and the arts; the Times Literary Supplement (founded 1902), important for the completeness of its coverage of all aspects of books and bibliographical matters; International Affairs (founded 1922), the journal of Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs; and The Political Quarterly (founded 1930), for the discussion of social and political questions from a progressive but nonparty point of view. Of the weekly political reviews, the Spectator (founded 1828), was representative of the right, and the New Statesman (founded 1913), founded by Sidney and Beatrice Webb, of the left, though both in a broad context; while Time and Tide(1920–79), originally founded by Lady Rhondda as an independent journal, was an influential newsmagazine. Several other periodicals met the need for serious articles on current questions; among them are The Economist (founded 1843); The Listener (founded 1929), published by the British Broadcasting Corporation and consisting mainly of radio talks in printed form; the New Scientist (founded 1956), drawing attention to current scientific work; and New Society (founded 1962), concentrating on sociology. Literary magazines came and went, but not without leaving their mark. They included the Egoist (1914–19), associated with Ezra Pound and the Imagists; the London Mercury (1919–39), started by J.C. (later Sir John) Squire, one of the Georgian poets; the Criterion (1922–39), founded and edited by T.S. Eliot; the Adelphi (1923–55), of John Middleton Murry; New Writing (1936–46), edited by John Lehmann, who also later revived the old London Magazine (from 1954); and Horizon (1940–50; revived 1958), which Cyril Connolly started as a medium for literature during the war years. Later, Encounter (founded 1953), an international review originally sponsored by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, proved to be an intellectual magazine of value and distinction. In addition, many “little magazines” have struggled along, as always, providing essential seedbeds for new writers.
USA
American counterparts to British scholarly journals include the Political Science Quarterly (founded 1886), edited by the political science faculty of Columbia University; the American Scholar (founded 1932), “a quarterly for the independent thinker” edited by the united chapters of Phi Beta Kappa; Foreign Affairs (founded 1922), a quarterly dealing with the international aspects of America’s political and economic problems; and Arts in Society (founded 1958), a forum for the discussion of the role of art, which also publishes poetry and reviews. Of general political journals, the oldest still in publication in the 1990s was The Nation, founded in 1865 by E.L. Godkin and edited in the period 1918–34 by Oswald Garrison Villard. By tradition it adopted a critical stand on most matters, disdaining approval by the majority; it was notable for the “casual brilliance” of its literary reviews. When the muckraking phase in the popular magazines died down, zeal for reform was left to a succession of little magazines that led precarious lives, often needing extra support from loyal readers or rich individuals. Such were the Progressive (founded 1909), of the La Follette family; The Masses (1911–17), run by the Greenwich Village Socialists; and The New Republic (founded 1914), which was started by Herbert Croly with the backing of the Straight family as “frankly an experiment” and “a journal of opinion to meet the challenge of the new time” and which survived as a liberal organ after many triumphs and vicissitudes. Between the wars came the Marxist Liberator (1918–24); the Freeman (1920–24 and 1950–54), founded to recommend the single-tax principle of Henry George and later revived as a Republican journal; the New Leader (founded 1927), for 10 years the organ of the American Socialist Party; and the extreme left New Masses (1926–48). Postwar foundations included the anticommunist Plain Talk (1946–50); the fortnightly Reporter (1949–68), strong on “facts and ideas”; and the conservative National Review (founded 1955). Of the literary magazines, the Atlantic and Harper’s were joined by the American Mercury (founded 1924), which had a brilliant initial period under H.L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan, when it published work by many distinguished writers of the time; and the Saturday Review (founded 1924), which began as a purely literary magazine but broadened its scope in the 1940s. In 1972 a new ownership brought more changes. A powerful influence on American writing has been exerted by The New Yorker (founded 1925), mainly through its founder Harold Ross, a perfectionist among editors. It became famous for its cartoons and biographical studies. Finally, there has been no lack of “little magazines” to foster talent.
Europe
Among the numerous literary magazines in Europe, several in France and Germany in particular may be mentioned. The Mercure de France was revived in 1890 as an organ of the Symbolists; the influential Nouvelle Revue Française (1909) aimed at a fresh examination of literary and intellectual values; and the Nouvelles Littéraires (1922) was founded by André Gillon as a weekly of information, criticism, and bibliography. After World War II there appeared Jean-Paul Sartre’s left-wing monthly Les Temps Modernes (founded 1945), La Table Ronde (1948), and Les Lettres Nouvelles (1953). In Germany, political magazines included the radical Die Fackel (1899; “The Torch”) and Die neue Gesellschaft (1903–07; “The New Society”) of the Social Democrats. An important literary influence was Blätter für die Kunst, associated with the Neoromantic movement of Stefan George. The Nazi period imposed a break in development, but after World War II the liberal weekly Die Zeit and a number of literary journals, such as Westermanns Monatshefte, Neue deutsche Hefte, and Akzente, appeared.
The political involvement of the literary review was especially marked in the Soviet Union and Soviet-bloc countries. The Literaturnaya Gazeta (founded 1929) and the influential Novy Mir (founded 1925; “New World”) often became the centre of controversy in the Soviet Union when writers were condemned for their views or denied the opportunity to publish. This led to a strong underground press. In Czechoslovakia the Literárne Listy played a prominent part in the freedom movement of 1968 and was later suppressed at Soviet insistence, along with the Reportér and Student, leading to the start of several underground magazines. Sinn und Form (founded 1949), a Marxist critical journal in Berlin, was subject to temporary suspensions for publishing such authors as Sartre, Kafka, and Hemingway, whose works had been banned in East Germany.
Though there may have been published material similar to a magazine in antiquity, especially perhaps in China, the magazine as it is now known began only after the invention of printing in the West. It had its roots in the spate of pamphlets, broadsides, ballads, chapbooks, and almanacs that printing made possible. Much of the energy that went into these gradually became channeled into publications that appeared regularly and collected a variety of material designed to appeal to particular interests. The magazine thus came to occupy the large middle ground, incapable of sharp definition, between the book and the newspaper.
The earliest magazine appears to have been the German Erbauliche Monaths-Unterredungen (1663–68; “Edifying Monthly Discussions”), started by Johann Rist, a theologian and poet of Hamburg. Soon after there appeared a group of learned periodicals: the Journal des Sçavans (later Journal des Savants; 1665), started in France by the author Denis de Sallo; the Philosophical Transactions (1665) of the Royal Society in England; and the Giornale de’ letterati (1668), published in Italy and issued by the scholar and ecclesiastic Francesco Nazzari. A similar journal was started in Germany a little later, the Acta eruditorum Lipsiensium (Leipzig; 1682); and mention may also be made of the exile-French Nouvelles de la République des Lettres (1684), published by the philosopher Pierre Bayle mainly in Holland to escape censorship. These sprang from the revival of learning, the need to review its fruits, and the wish to diffuse its spirit as widely as possible.
The learned journals summarized important new books, but there were as yet no literary reviews. Book advertisements, by about 1650 a regular feature of the newssheets, sometimes had brief comments added, and regular catalogs began to appear, such as the English quarterly Mercurius librarius, or A Catalogue of Books (1668–70). But in the 17th century the only periodicals devoted to books were short-lived: the Weekly Memorials for the Ingenious (1682–83), which offered some critical notes on books, and the Universal Historical Bibliothèque (January–March 1686). The latter invited scholarly contributions and could thus be regarded as the true forerunner of the literary review.
The lighter type of magazine, or “periodical of amusement,” may be dated from 1672, which saw the first appearance of Le Mercure Galant (renamed Mercure de France in 1714). It was founded by the writer Jean Donneau de Vizé and contained court news, anecdotes, and short pieces of verse—a recipe that was to prove endlessly popular and become widely imitated. This was followed in 1688 by a German periodical with an unwieldy title but one that well expressed the intention behind many a subsequent magazine: “Entertaining and Serious, Rational and Unsophisticated Ideas on All Kinds of Agreeable and Useful Books and Subjects.” It was issued in Leipzig by the jurist Christian Thomasius, who made a point of encouraging women readers. England was next in the field, with a penny weekly, the Athenian Gazette (better known later as the Athenian Mercury; 1690–97), run by a London publisher, John Dunton, to resolve “all the most Nice and Curious Questions.” Soon after came the Gentleman’s Journal (1692–94), started by the French-born Peter Anthony Motteux, with a monthly blend of news, prose, and poetry. In 1693, after devoting some experimental numbers of the Athenian Mercury to “the Fair Sex,” Dunton brought out the first magazine specifically for women, the Ladies’ Mercury. Finally, another note, taken up time and again later, was struck by The London Spy (1698–1700), issued by a tavern keeper, Ned Ward, and containing a running narrative of the sights and sounds of London.
Developments in the 18th century
Great Britain
With increasing literacy—especially among women—and a quickening interest in new ideas, the magazine filled out and became better established. In Britain, three early “essay periodicals” had enormous influence: Daniel Defoe’s The Review (1704–13; thrice weekly); Sir Richard Steele’s The Tatler (1709–11; thrice weekly), to which Joseph Addison soon contributed; and Addison and Steele’s The Spectator (1711–12, briefly revived in 1714; daily). Though they resembled newspapers in the frequency of their appearance, they were more like magazines in content. The Review introduced the opinion-forming political article on domestic and foreign affairs, while the cultivated essays of The Tatler and The Spectator, designed “to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality,” did much to shape the manners and taste of the age. The latter had countless imitators not only in Britain, where there were in addition the Female Tatler (1709–10) and the Female Spectator (1744–46), but also on the Continent and later in America. The Stamp Tax of 1712 had a damping effect, as intended, but magazines proved endlessly resilient, easy to start and easy to fail, then as now.
So far various themes had been tried out; they were first brought together convincingly by the English printer Edward Cave, who began to publish The Gentleman’s Magazine in 1731. It was originally a monthly collection of essays and articles culled from elsewhere, hence the term magazine—the first use of the word in this context. Cave was joined in 1738 by Dr. Johnson, who was later to publish his own Rambler (1750–52); thereafter The Gentleman’s Magazine contained mostly original matter, including parliamentary reports. Rivals and imitators quickly followed, notably the London Magazine (1732–85) and the Scots Magazine (1739–1817; to 1826 published as the Edinburgh Magazine); and, among the increasing number of women’s periodicals, there were a Ladies’ Magazine (1749–53) and a Lady’s Magazine (1770–1832). Their progenitor, however, outlived them all and perished only in 1907.
The literary and political rivalries of the day produced numerous short-lived periodicals, from which the critical review emerged as an established form. Robert Dodsley, a London publisher, started the Museum (1746–47), devoted mainly to books, and Ralph Griffiths, a Nonconformist bookseller, founded The Monthly Review (1749–1845), which had the novelist and poet Oliver Goldsmith as a contributor. To oppose the latter on behalf of the Tories and the Church of England, The Critical Review (1756–1817) was started by an Edinburgh printer, Archibald Hamilton, with the novelist Tobias Smollett as its first editor. Book reviews tended to be long and fulsome, with copious quotations; a more astringent note came in only with the founding of the Edinburgh Review in 1802.
The 19th century and the start of mass circulation
General Periodicals
Most of the early periodicals were designed for the few who could afford them and can be fairly called “quality” magazines. In the 1830s, however, less expensive magazines, aimed at a wider public, began to appear. At first these magazines emphasized features that promoted improvement, enlightenment, and family entertainment, but, toward the end of the century, they evolved into popular versions that aimed at providing amusement.
The pioneers of the new type of magazine in Britain were Charles Knight, publisher for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, with his weekly Penny Magazine (1832–46) and Penny Cyclopaedia (1833–58); the Chambers brothers, William and Robert, with Chambers’s (Edinburgh) Journal (1832–1956), which reached a circulation of 90,000 in 1845; and teetotaler John Cassell, with his Working Man’s Friend and Family Instructor (1850–53) and the Quiver (1861). Besides popular magazines, many standard works appeared serially, often with illustrations. Typical of family entertainment were Charles Dickens’ Household Words (1850), followed in 1859 by All the Year Round; several similar periodicals such as Good Words (1860); and, for young people, the Boy’s Own Paper (1879) and the Girl’s Own Paper (1880). Germany had its Pfennigmagazin (1833), edited by Johann Jakob Weber, and a family magazine modeled on that of Dickens. One example was the Gartenlaube (1853–1937; “Arbour”), which enjoyed great popular influence and a circulation of 400,000 in the 1870s. There were no national magazines in the United States before about 1850, but two of its best-known early periodicals were the Saturday Evening Post (1821–1969; revived 1971) and Youth’s Companion (1827–1929). The latter, published in Boston, was typically wholesome in content, intended to “warn against the ways of transgression” and to encourage “virtue and piety.”
By the last quarter of the century, largely as a result of compulsory education, the potential market for magazines had greatly increased, and the public was avid for miscellaneous information and light entertainment. The first man in Britain to discover this was George Newnes, who liked snipping out any paragraph that appealed to him. In 1881 he turned his hobby to advantage by publishing a penny magazine, Tit-Bits from all the Most Interesting Books, Periodicals and Contributors in the World, soon shortened to Tit-Bits (in 1968 restyled Titbits). It was a great success and formed the beginning of a publishing empire that was to include Country Life (founded 1897), Wide World Magazine (1898), and, above all, The Strand Magazine (1891–1950), one of the first monthly magazines of light literature with plenty of illustrations. The Strand became enormously popular and is perhaps most famous for its Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. Among the early contributors to Tit-Bits was Alfred Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe), who had an appetite for odd bits of information similar to that of Newnes. In 1888, after editing Youth and Bicycling News, Harmsworth launched a rival to Tit-Bits called Answers to Correspondents, or Answers, which he successfully promoted by contests. Within five years he produced a string of inexpensive magazines for the same popular market, including Comic Cuts and Home Chat. A similar empire was built up by Arthur Pearson, another former Tit-Bits employee, with Pearson’s Weekly and Home Notes, among others.
In the United States, magazine publishing boomed as part of the general expansion after the Civil War. It was also helped by favourable postal rates for periodicals (1879). But a gulf remained between expensive magazines aimed at the genteel, such as Harper’s and Scribner’s (see below Literary and scientific magazines), and cheaper weeklies and miscellanies. The first person to produce a popular monthly to fill this gap and thus spark off a revolution in the industry was Samuel Sidney McClure, who began publishing McClure’s Magazine in 1893, which he sold for 15 cents an issue instead of the usual 25 or 35 cents. John Brisben Walker, who was building up Cosmopolitan (founded 1886) after acquiring it in 1889, cut his price to 12 1/2 cents, and in October 1893 Frank A. Munsey reduced the price of Munsey’s Magazine (1889–1929) to 10 cents. All three saw that, by keeping down the price and gearing contents to the interests and problems of the average reader, high circulations were attainable. Munsey estimated that, between 1893 and 1899, “the ten-cent magazine increased the magazine-buying public from 250,000 to 750,000 persons.” This increase in circulation in turn led to high advertising revenue, making it possible to sell a magazine, like a newspaper, for less than its cost of production, a practice that was to become common in the next century. Technical development was also important; mass-production methods and the use of photoengraving processes for illustration enabled attractive magazines to be produced at ever lower unit costs.
The first magazine published in Australia was the Australian Magazine, which began in 1821 and lasted for 13 monthly issues. The South Asian Register began as a quarterly in 1827 but only four issues appeared. The Hobart Town Magazine (1833–34) survived a bit longer and contained stories, poems, and essays by Australian writers. The Sydney Literary News (1837) was the first to contain serial fiction and advertisements. Illustrations were introduced in the 1840s; the Australian Gold Digger’s Monthly Magazine and Colonial Family Visitor (1852–53) was followed by the Melbourne Punch (1855–1925; incorporated in Table Talk, 1885–1937).
In India the first magazines were published by the British. The earliest to appear was the Oriental Magazine; or, Calcutta Amusement (1785–86); it was followed by a number of short-lived missionary publications. The first periodical founded and edited by an Indian was the Hindustan Review, which commenced in 1900.
Missionaries founded the first periodical in China; printed in Malacca, the Chinese Monthly Magazine lasted from 1815 to 1822. It was followed by the East-West Monthly Magazine, printed in Canton from 1833 to 1837 and in Singapore from 1837 until its end in 1847.
Illustrated Magazines
The first man in Britain to notice the effect of illustrations on sales and grasp their possibilities was a newsagent in Nottingham, Herbert Ingram, who moved to London in 1842 and began publishing The Illustrated London News, a weekly consisting of 16 pages of letterpress and 32 woodcuts. It was successful from the start, winning the approval of the Archbishop of Canterbury and hence that of the clerical public. Though it suffered at first from the defect that its pictures were by well-known artists but were not taken from life, it later sent artists all over the world. Drawings made on the spot during the South African War, sometimes at considerable risk, were a great popular feature. Among its competitors was the monthly English Illustrated Magazine (1883–1913).
The idea of presenting the news largely in pictures was quickly taken up in France by L’Illustration (1843–1944) and in Germany by the Leipziger illustrierte Zeitung (1843) and Die Woche (1899–1940).
In the United States, the main early illustrated magazines were Leslie’s Weekly (1855–1922) and Harper’s Weekly (1857). Soon after its founding, Leslie’s had a circulation of 100,000, which doubled or trebled whenever there was something sensational to portray. During the Civil War, of which it gave a good pictorial record, it had as many as 12 correspondents at the front.
The invention of photography and the development of the halftone block began to transform this type of magazine from the 1890s, with the artist increasingly being displaced by the camera.
Women's Magazines
Women’s magazines frequently reflect the changing view of women’s role in society. In the 18th century, when women were expected to participate in social and political life, those magazines aimed primarily at women were relatively robust and stimulating in content; in the 19th, when domesticity became the ideal, they were inclined to be insipid and humourless. After about 1880, magazines began to widen their horizons again.
Typical of the late Georgian and Regency magazines in Britain were The Lady’s Magazine (1770), a sixpenny monthly that, along with its literary contributions and fashion notes, gave away embroidery patterns and sheet music; The Lady’s Monthly Museum (1798), which had a half-yearly “Cabinet of Fashion” illustrated by coloured engravings, the first to appear in a women’s periodical; and La Belle Assemblée (1806), which encouraged its readers to unburden themselves in its correspondence columns. These three merged in 1832, the first instance of what was to become a common occurrence, but ceased publication in 1847. Later women’s magazines included The Ladies’ Pocket Magazine (1824–40), The Ladies’ Cabinet (1832–52), The New Monthly Belle Assemblée (1847–70), and The Ladies’ Treasury (1857–95). All contained verse, fiction, and articles of high moral tone but low intellectual content. There were attempts to swim against the tide, such as The Female’s Friend (1846), which was one of the first periodicals to espouse women’s rights, but they seldom lasted long.
In 1852 a wider market began to be tapped by The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine, a monthly issued by Samuel Beeton at twopence instead of the usual one shilling; it was also the first women’s periodical to concentrate on home management and offer practical advice to women rather than provide entertainment for the idle. Beeton’s wife (author of the classic Book of Household Management, 1861) visited Paris regularly and acquired fashion plates from Adolphe Goubaud’s Moniteur de la Mode. A feature of Beeton’s magazine was the “Practical Dress Instructor,” a forerunner of the paper dressmaking pattern. In 1861, Beeton followed up his success with The Queen, a weekly newspaper of more topical character.
The great expansion of women’s magazines into a major industry may be dated in Britain from Myra’s Journal of Dress and Fashion (1875–1912) and Weldon’s Ladies’ Journal (1875–1954), both of which supplied dressmaking patterns and met the needs of a mass readership. Several new quality magazines were started, such as The Lady (founded 1885) and The Gentlewoman (1890–1926), one of the first to acknowledge the financial necessity of advertisements, but there were many more cheap weeklies, such as Home Notes (1894–1957), Home Chat (1895–1958), and Home Companion (1897–1956); these were of great help in teaching women about hygiene, nutrition, and child care.
Among the earliest women’s magazines in the United States was a monthly published in Philadelphia called Godey’s Lady’s Book (1830–98), which employed up to 150 women to hand-tint its fashion plates. Of the early national magazines, one of the best and hardiest was Harper’s Bazar (1867; Harper’s Bazaar after 1929), modeled on a Berlin women’s periodical, Der Bazar, from which it obtained its fashion material. The practical trend was begun in 1863 by Ebenezer Butterick, who devised the tissue-paper clothing pattern and, to popularize it, brought out the Ladies’ Quarterly Review of Broadway Fashions and, later, Metropolitan. These merged in 1873 into the Delineator, which had a highly successful career until 1937. The field of women’s magazines was finally transformed, however, by Cyrus Curtis with his Ladies’ Home Journal (founded 1883), edited by his wife, Louisa Knapp Curtis. This soon reached a circulation of 400,000 and, under the editorship of Edward W. Bok, from 1889, broke with sentimentality and piety to become a stimulating journal of real service to women. Other popular magazines were Ladies’ Home Companion (1886; called Woman’s Home Companion, 1897–1957), McCall’s Magazine (founded 1897), and Pictorial Review (1899–1939). Two requiring special mention were Good Housekeeping (founded 1885), which established a testing station for consumer goods early in the 20th century, and Vogue (founded 1892), a fashion weekly (later a monthly) dedicated to “the ceremonial side of life,” which was designed for the elite of New York City and had Cornelius Vanderbilt among its backers.
Literary and Scientific Magazines
The critical review developed strongly in the 19th century, often as an adjunct to a book-publishing business. It became a forum for the questions of the day—political, literary, and artistic—to which many great figures contributed. There were also many magazines with a literary flavour, and these serialized some of the best fiction of the period. A few marked the beginning of specialization—e.g., in science.
Britain was particularly rich in reviews, beginning with the Edinburgh Review (1802–1929), founded by a trio of gifted young critics: Francis Jeffrey, Henry Brougham, and Sydney Smith. The high and independent tone they adopted was said by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to mark an “epoch in periodical criticism.” Though Tories, including at first Sir Walter Scott, wrote for it, the Edinburgh Review gradually became increasingly Whig in attitude. Scott accordingly transferred his allegiance to the Quarterly Review (1809–1967), the Edinburgh Review’s Tory rival, founded by the London publisher John Murray and first edited by William Gifford. Gifford had previously edited The Anti-Jacobin (1797–98), with which such figures as the Tory statesman George Canning were associated. In opposition to these, and more political than any of them, was the Westminster Review (1824–1914), started by Jeremy Bentham and James Mill as an organ of the philosophical radicals. Two other early reviews were the Athenaeum (1828–1921), an independent literary weekly, and the Spectator (founded 1828), a nonpartisan but conservative-leaning political weekly that nonetheless supported parliamentary reform and the cause of the North in the American Civil War. Later reviews included the Saturday Review (1855–1938), which had George Bernard Shaw and Max Beerbohm as drama critics (1895–1910); the Fortnightly Review (1865–1954), which had the Liberal statesman John Morley as editor (1867–83); the Contemporary Review (founded 1866); the Nineteenth Century (1877; later the Twentieth Century, until it closed in 1974); and W.T. Stead’s Review of Reviews (1890–1936), a more limited version of Reader’s Digest.
Scholarly Journals
The publishing of scholarly journals, begun in the 17th century, expanded greatly in the 19th as fresh fields of inquiry opened up or old ones were further divided into specialties. Numerous learned societies were formed in such fields as classical studies, biblical studies, archaeology, philology, Egyptology, the Orient, and all the branches into which science was dividing, and each society published a regular bulletin, proceedings, or “transactions,” which enabled scholars to keep in touch with what others were doing. In the sober pages of these journals, seldom read by the general public, some of the most far-reaching discoveries were first made known. Among the many notable publications were Annali del Istituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica (1829), the Revue Archéologique (founded 1844), Philologus (1846), Mind (founded 1876), the Journal of Hellenic Studies (founded 1880), the American Journal of Philology (founded 1880), the Asiatic Quarterly (1886; later called South Asian Review), the Geographical Journal (1893), and an interesting informal aid to scholars, Notes and Queries (1849), with the motto: “When found, make a note of.” In every advanced country the professions too began to have journals, such as medicine’s Lancet (founded 1823), in Britain, originally started to attack abuses in hospital administration; the Mining Journal (founded 1835); the British Medical Journal (founded 1840); The Engineer (founded 1856); and the Solicitors’ Journal (founded 1857), to cite only a few examples. In the course of time, these developed endless technical ramifications. The economics of all such journals are based on necessity. Though their circulation is small, anyone working in a particular field generally subscribes to them or at least has access to them in appropriate libraries. They can be described as reference books in installments.
The 20th century
The advertising Revolution in Popular Magazines
There was a certain resistance to advertising in magazines, in keeping with their literary affinities. When the advertisement tax in Britain was repealed in 1853 and more advertising began to appear, the Athenaeum thought fit to say: “It is the duty of an independent journal to protect as far as possible the credulous, confiding and unwary from the wily arts of the insidious advertiser.” In the United States many magazines, such as Harper’s, took a high line with would-be advertisers until the 1880s; and Reader’s Digest, with its mammoth circulation, admitted advertisements to its American edition only in 1955. Yet today some sectors of the magazine industry are dominated by advertising, and few are wholly free from its influence.
Magazine Advertising Economics
In the United States Cyrus Curtis showed what could be achieved in attracting advertising revenue with the Saturday Evening Post. He bought the magazine for $1,000 in 1897, when it was on its last legs, and invested $1,250,000 of his profits from the Ladies’ Home Journal before it finally caught on. But when it did, through an appeal based on well-founded stories and articles about the business world, a prime interest at the time, its success was enormous; by 1922 it had a circulation of more than 2,000,000 and an advertising revenue in excess of $28,000,000. It was a classic demonstration of modern magazine economics: as circulation rose in the initial phase of low advertising rates, money had to be poured in to meet the cost of producing more copies; but, as soon as high advertising rates could be justified by a high circulation, profitability was assured. Conversely, when high rates are maintained on a falling circulation, it is the advertisers who lose, until they withdraw their support.
Once circulation figures became all-important, advertisers naturally asserted their right to verify them. The first attempt, made in 1899 by the Association of American Advertisers, only lasted until 1913, but fresh initiatives in 1914 created the Audit Bureau of Circulation. Though resented at first by publishers, it was eventually seen as a guarantee of their claims. Interest in circulation led publishers into market research. The first organization for this purpose was set up by the Curtis Publishing Company in 1911; but such research did not become general until the 1930s. Reader research, to ascertain what readers wanted from magazines, was also developed in the 1930s and proved to be a useful tool, though no substitute for editorial flair. As was once observed by the features editor of Vogue: “If we find out what people want, it’s already too late.”
Thus the popular magazine in the United States, expanding with the economy, became part of the marketing system. By 1900 advertisements might form up to 50 percent of its contents; by 1947, the proportion was more often 65 percent. A proprietor was no longer just selling attractive editorial matter to a segment of the public; he was also selling a well-charted segment of the public to the advertiser. Though the process was most pronounced in the United States, a vast country where, in the absence of national newspapers, national magazines had a special function, the same principles came to apply, in varying degrees, in Europe.
The effects of advertising on the appearance of the magazine have been, on the whole, stimulating. At the turn of the century, advertisements began to move forward from the back pages into greater prominence among the editorial matter, and this was often regretted by readers. At the same time, advertising agencies were developing from mere space sellers into copywriters and designers; their efforts to produce work of high visual appeal forced editors to make their own editorial typography and layout more attractive. The use of colour, in particular, was greatly fostered by advertisers once they discovered its effectiveness. In the 1880s colour printing was rare, but, after the development of the multicolour rotary press in the 1890s, it steadily became more common. By 1948 nearly half the advertising pages of the leading American magazines were in two or more colours.
The effect of advertising on editorial content is harder to analyze. Advertisers have not been slow to exercise financial pressure and have often succeeded in suppressing material or modifying policy. In 1940, for instance, Esquire lost its piano advertisements after publishing an article recommending the guitar for musical accompaniment; six months later it tried to win them back with a rueful editorial apology. Yet many magazines, notably the Saturday Evening Post, Time, and The New Yorker, have persistently asserted editorial independence. Something like a balance of power has come into being, which can tip either way. What can safely be said is that advertising pressure as a whole has been a socially conservative force, playing on conformity, inclining magazines to work on the principle of “minimum offense,” and holding them back from radical editorial departures until they are clearly indicated by changes in public taste. This has tended to make the large-circulation magazine an exploiter rather than a discoverer of fresh talent or new ideas. Yet in the last analysis, advertisers have been forced to recognize that magazines, like newspapers, cannot forgo too much of their independence without forfeiting the loyalty of their readers and hence their value as an advertising medium.
Advertising in Britain and Europe
Though the advertising revolution began in Britain at much the same time as in the United States, its course has been less explosive. By 1898, The Gentlewoman was pointing out in its first issue that every copy cost “nearly double the price for which it is sold.” Yet Britain’s Audit Bureau of Circulations was not set up until 1931, and membership remained small until the 1960s; for it was only then that consumer spending in Britain (and hence advertising) really began to soar, to be reflected in a boom in women’s magazines. In the early part of the century, the old general magazines continued to flourish, with such additions as the Windsor Magazine (1895–1939), Pearson’s Magazine (1896–1909), Argosy (founded 1926), which published only fiction, and the popular weekly John Bull (1906–64), which thrived on “revelations.” Several American magazines, especially women’s, began to come out in British editions, such as Vogue (1916), Good Housekeeping (1922), and Harper’s Bazaar (1929; in 1970 amalgamated with Queen as Harpers & Queen). Society periodicals lost ground after World War I to those catering to the so-called new poor and new rich, although snobbery still proved a lucrative element in magazine publishing, notably with the Tatler, which became highly successful under a new editor in the early 1980s. The fortnightly Queen, Woman’s Weekly (founded 1911), and the monthly Woman and Home (founded 1926) and Woman’s Journal (founded 1927) were joined by such popular weeklies as Woman’s Own (founded 1932), Woman’s Illustrated (1936–61), and, above all, Woman (founded 1937), the first to be printed by colourgravure. During World War II some of these magazines gave valuable practical advice on how to cope with shortages. In postwar Britain magazines began to be distributed through retail outlets—mostly supermarkets—other than bookshops or newsagents. The chief examples were Family Circle (founded 1964), an Anglo-American production, and its sister publication, Living (founded 1967). The trend toward youthful markets was indicated by She (founded 1955), broad and robust in outlook; Honey (founded 1960); Annabel (founded 1966), for younger married women in particular; Petticoat (1966–75), for girls 14 to 19 years old; and 19 (1968), a market leader. The death of many of the old general magazines, under the pressure of paperbacks and television, and the dearth of illustrated weeklies (see below Picture magazines) left room for a new advertising vehicle. The first to perceive this was Lord Thomson, who in 1962 brought out a colour magazine as supplement to the Sunday Times (London). Its eventual success forced the Observer and the Daily Telegraph to follow suit (the colour supplement was eventually removed from the latter paper and issued instead with its sister publication, the Sunday Telegraph). In the early 1980s the popular Sunday papers also started supplements.
In the rest of Europe the impact of advertising on magazines has been more delayed and less pronounced, partly because market prices of continental magazines tend to be closer to the production cost. General magazines were fairly limited before World War II, but since then, as part of the economic expansion, there has been a rich crop, including many newsmagazines similar to Time and Life and also a number of magazines for women. France has several of the latter with large circulations, including Nous Deux, Elle, and Intimité, while those in Germany include entries for all age groups, such as Jasmin for newlyweds and Eltern for parents. Though the northern European countries have fewer periodicals, it is worth noting that in Finland Pirkka, a giveaway distributed through grocery stores, achieved one of the largest magazine circulations.
News and Photo Magazines
The accelerated tempo of life in the 20th century, coupled with the bewildering amount of information appearing in print, suggested the need for more concise ways of presenting it. The first to show how it could be done and so give rise to a whole new class of periodical was the U.S. newsmagazine Time, founded in 1923 by Briton Hadden and Henry Luce.
Time Magazine
There had, of course, been newsmagazines before, in both Europe and the United States. Time magazine’s immediate forerunner was the Pathfinder (1894–1954), a weekly rewriting of the news for rural readers. There had also been attempts at compression of the digest type (see below Digests and pocket magazines). But Time was the first to aim at a brief and systematic presentation of the whole of the world’s news. It was based on the proposition that “people are uninformed because no publication has adapted itself to the time which busy men are able to spend simply keeping informed.” Its beginning was amateurish and precarious; neither Hadden nor Luce had much experience when they started summarizing the news from bundles of daily papers (copyright provisions on newspapers allowing this use). But after 1928 it grew steadily, finding its market chiefly among the rising number of college graduates. What came to be known as the Time style was characterized, in the words of a later critic, by two great democratic ideals, disrespect for authority and reverence for success. Time presented the news in tightly packed sentences, well researched and checked, and with a general air of omniscience. In the 1930s, to ensure adequate sources of information, Time Inc. built up a large news-gathering organization of its own. It also branched out into other publications, including Fortune (founded 1930), summarizing business news, Life (see below), and People, a weekly begun in 1974.
Picture Magazines
Conciseness can also be achieved through pictures, which obviate the need for description. Illustrated newsmagazines began in the 19th century, but they took an altogether new form as photography developed. The most influential, though by no means the first of the modern type, was undoubtedly the American weekly Life (1936–72), started by Henry Luce.
Pictorial journalism grew up alongside advertising techniques, the tabloid, and the documentary film. Modern cameras enabled top-grade photographs to be taken quickly under almost any conditions. Photojournalists were particularly active in Germany, until many had to flee the Nazis. One of them was the Hungarian Stefan Lorant, who developed the photo essay (a story reported through pictures) with Bilder Courier in Berlin in 1926 and with the Münchener illustrierte Presse in the period 1927–33. He then went to Britain, where he started a pocket picture magazine, Lilliput (1937–60), and was the first editor of Picture Post (1938–57). Another pioneer was a German, Erich Salomon, who became celebrated for his photographs of the famous, particularly politicians, in unguarded moments. Salomon’s pictures in the London Tatler in 1928 prompted Fortune to invite him to the United States, where he inspired the Life photographer Thomas McAvoy.
In November 1936, therefore, when Life first appeared, picture magazines were already fairly common. Only a month before, Mid-Week Pictorial (1914–37), an American weekly of news pictures, had been restyled along the lines Life was to take, but Life quickly overwhelmed it. Though expected to have a circulation of well under 500,000 copies, Life was running at 1,000,000 within weeks. Its first issue, 96 large pages of pictures on glossy paper for 10 cents, was a sellout, the opening picture brilliant: an obstetrician holding a newborn baby, with the caption “Life begins.” Over the years, it kept the promise of its prospectus: “To see life; to see the world; to witness great events; to watch the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud; to see strange things. . . .” During World War II, which it covered with great accomplishment, it enlarged its operations with a fortnightly international edition, and in 1952 a Spanish-language edition was added for Latin America, Life en Español. In 1971 Life magazine’s circulation was about 7,000,000, but its high costs were no longer being met by advertising income, and it ceased publication in December 1972; it was revived as a monthly in October 1978.
Digests and Pocket Magazines
Readers Digest
The need for concise reading matter, so well met by Time and Life, was met even more successfully, in terms of circulation, by an American magazine that reprinted in condensed form articles from other periodicals. This was the pocket-size Reader’s Digest, founded in 1922 by DeWitt Wallace.
Its forerunners in the United States were the Literary Digest (1890–1938), started by two former Lutheran ministers, Isaac K. Funk and Adam W. Wagnalls; the Review of Reviews (1890–1937), founded by Albert Shaw to condense material about world affairs; and Frank Munsey’s Scrap Book (1906–12), “a granary for the gleanings of literature.” The Literary Digest, in particular, with a circulation of more than 1,000,000 in the early 1920s, was something of an American institution. Its famous straw votes successfully predicted the result of the presidential elections after 1920, and its highly publicized wrong prediction of the outcome of the 1936 election played a decisive part in its collapse. Reader’s Digest, however, was more specific in content and more universal in appeal. It aimed to supply “An article a day from leading magazines in condensed, permanent, booklet form.” Each article, moreover, satisfied three criteria: “applicability” (it had to be of concern to the average reader); “lasting interest” (it had to be readable a year later); and “constructiveness” (it had to be on the side of optimism and good works).
After three years’ preparation, Wallace began to produce the magazine (first issue February 1922) from a basement office in New York City. After a year, subscriptions were running at about 7,000. In 1939, when circulation had reached 3,000,000, Reader’s Digest moved into large premises at nearby Chappaqua. Until 1930 it was produced entirely by amateurs. Condensed books began to be added at the end of the magazine in 1934, and from this grew the Reader’s Digest Condensed Book Club, with 2,500,000 members four years later. Overseas editions were started in 1939 (British), and foreign-language editions in 1940 (Spanish), others being steadily added over the following 10 years. In the late 1980s, Reader’s Digest had one of the largest circulations of any magazine in the world.
Specialised Magazines
Though general magazines have the largest circulations, most magazines cater to specialist interests or pursuits. Circulation varies, but, even where it is small, it is usually stable over the short term and offers an advertiser a well-defined market. Such magazines may be broadly classified into professional (including trade and technical) and nonprofessional journals.
Professional Types
The professional magazine, often the organ of an association, keeps members informed of the latest developments, helps them to maintain standards, and defends their interests. Some were started in the 19th century, but specialization and different viewpoints within specialties have encouraged proliferation. Instead of two or three medical journals, for instance, there are now likely to be dozens, besides those in specialized areas such as dentistry, ophthalmology, and psychiatry. Though most of these magazines are of little interest to the general public, a few print authoritative articles of broader scope.
Trade and technical journals serve those working in industry and commerce. They too have grown enormously in numbers. Major discoveries in science, manufacturing methods, or business practice tend to create a new subdivision of technology, with its own practitioners and, more often than not, its own magazine. Articles in these magazines tend to be highly factual and accurately written, by people deeply immersed in their subjects. Most are well produced, often on art paper for the sake of the illustrations, and heavily dependent on advertising. Indeed, many are issued for a controlled circulation; i.e., a publisher undertakes to distribute a magazine free of charge to a given number of specialist concerns, which can be relied upon to want a certain range of products. The manufacturers of these products, for their part, are naturally glad to have an advertising medium guaranteed to reach their particular market. The business papers may lack glamour, but they play a vital and highly influential part in economic life.
Non-Professional Types
Of the nonprofessional magazines, quite a number serve broad interest groups, religious, political, or social. Most religious denominations have journals, often more than one. Though some of these magazines are subsidized as part of a drive to spread their message, most of them merely aim to foster corporate feeling among coreligionists. Much the same applies to political magazines in the narrow sense—i.e., where they are issued by political organizations: they discuss doctrine, give news of activities, and forge links among members. Political discussion on less partisan matters and in a less partisan tone tends to take place in more general magazines. Certain periodicals spring from the needs of particular groups, an example being student magazines.
Specialized magazines for the layman may fall into the hobby category. Very often a professional magazine has an amateur counterpart, as, for instance, in electronics, where the amateur finds a wide range of technical magazines on radio, television, hi-fi, and tape recording. Other popular subjects are photography (the British Amateur Photographer was founded in 1884) and motoring (Hearst’s Motor was founded, as Motor Cycling and Motoring, in 1902); specialization even extends to types of camera and makes of car. Virtually no hobby or sport is without its magazine. As soon as any activity becomes sufficiently popular, a magazine appears to cater to its adherents and to provide an advertising medium, not only for manufacturers and suppliers but also for readers, to help them buy and sell secondhand equipment, for instance.
Some special tastes in entertainment are met by the “pulp” and “comic” magazines. In 1896 Frank Munsey turned his Argosy into an all-fiction magazine using rough wood-pulp paper. The “dime novel” did not qualify for inexpensive postal rates in the United States, but the pulp magazine did, and so an industry was born. Pulps began as adventure magazines but soon split up into further categories: love, detective, and western. Such magazines sold in the millions up to the mid-1930s, when they gradually lost ground to the comics. These began as collections reprinted from the comic strips in newspapers; the first to appear regularly was Famous Funnies (1934). After 1937, however, with Detective Comics, they came into their own as original publications, and, like the pulps, they grew into a major industry, dividing up into much the same types. They may be seen, in effect, as pictorial condensations of the pulps. Though mainly for children, they were widely read by adults. “Comic” rapidly became a misnomer, as they played increasingly on horror and violence. While some defended them as harmless and even cathartic, others condemned them as incitements to imitation. Attempts at control were made through legislation in the United States and elsewhere, and the industry itself tried to set standards. Television has since drawn much of the criticism, and the demand, to itself, but comics remain big business. One type of magazine, originally classed as pulp but attaining with the years a certain respectability, is the science-fiction magazine, the first example of which was Hugo Gernsback’s Amazing Stories, first published in 1926.
The “fan” magazines offer glimpses of life behind the scenes in the world of entertainment and sport. In the heyday of motion pictures, many magazines on films and their stars appeared, beginning with Photoplay (1911–77) and Picture Play (1915) and later others, such as Movie Mirror (1930) and Movieland (1942). When radio and television became popular, similar magazines sprang up centring on programs and their personalities. One of their functions was to provide a weekly timetable of programs.
Finally, there are a number of “special service” magazines—e.g., financial magazines to help the private investor, magazines of advice issued by consumer associations, magazines specifically for house hunters, racegoers, or for trading in secondhand goods, and so on.
Britain
Many of the British reviews founded in the 19th century have continued to flourish. Among additions of the scholarly type were the Hibbert Journal (1902–70), a nonsectarian quarterly for the discussion of religion, philosophy, sociology, and the arts; the Times Literary Supplement (founded 1902), important for the completeness of its coverage of all aspects of books and bibliographical matters; International Affairs (founded 1922), the journal of Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs; and The Political Quarterly (founded 1930), for the discussion of social and political questions from a progressive but nonparty point of view. Of the weekly political reviews, the Spectator (founded 1828), was representative of the right, and the New Statesman (founded 1913), founded by Sidney and Beatrice Webb, of the left, though both in a broad context; while Time and Tide(1920–79), originally founded by Lady Rhondda as an independent journal, was an influential newsmagazine. Several other periodicals met the need for serious articles on current questions; among them are The Economist (founded 1843); The Listener (founded 1929), published by the British Broadcasting Corporation and consisting mainly of radio talks in printed form; the New Scientist (founded 1956), drawing attention to current scientific work; and New Society (founded 1962), concentrating on sociology. Literary magazines came and went, but not without leaving their mark. They included the Egoist (1914–19), associated with Ezra Pound and the Imagists; the London Mercury (1919–39), started by J.C. (later Sir John) Squire, one of the Georgian poets; the Criterion (1922–39), founded and edited by T.S. Eliot; the Adelphi (1923–55), of John Middleton Murry; New Writing (1936–46), edited by John Lehmann, who also later revived the old London Magazine (from 1954); and Horizon (1940–50; revived 1958), which Cyril Connolly started as a medium for literature during the war years. Later, Encounter (founded 1953), an international review originally sponsored by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, proved to be an intellectual magazine of value and distinction. In addition, many “little magazines” have struggled along, as always, providing essential seedbeds for new writers.
USA
American counterparts to British scholarly journals include the Political Science Quarterly (founded 1886), edited by the political science faculty of Columbia University; the American Scholar (founded 1932), “a quarterly for the independent thinker” edited by the united chapters of Phi Beta Kappa; Foreign Affairs (founded 1922), a quarterly dealing with the international aspects of America’s political and economic problems; and Arts in Society (founded 1958), a forum for the discussion of the role of art, which also publishes poetry and reviews. Of general political journals, the oldest still in publication in the 1990s was The Nation, founded in 1865 by E.L. Godkin and edited in the period 1918–34 by Oswald Garrison Villard. By tradition it adopted a critical stand on most matters, disdaining approval by the majority; it was notable for the “casual brilliance” of its literary reviews. When the muckraking phase in the popular magazines died down, zeal for reform was left to a succession of little magazines that led precarious lives, often needing extra support from loyal readers or rich individuals. Such were the Progressive (founded 1909), of the La Follette family; The Masses (1911–17), run by the Greenwich Village Socialists; and The New Republic (founded 1914), which was started by Herbert Croly with the backing of the Straight family as “frankly an experiment” and “a journal of opinion to meet the challenge of the new time” and which survived as a liberal organ after many triumphs and vicissitudes. Between the wars came the Marxist Liberator (1918–24); the Freeman (1920–24 and 1950–54), founded to recommend the single-tax principle of Henry George and later revived as a Republican journal; the New Leader (founded 1927), for 10 years the organ of the American Socialist Party; and the extreme left New Masses (1926–48). Postwar foundations included the anticommunist Plain Talk (1946–50); the fortnightly Reporter (1949–68), strong on “facts and ideas”; and the conservative National Review (founded 1955). Of the literary magazines, the Atlantic and Harper’s were joined by the American Mercury (founded 1924), which had a brilliant initial period under H.L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan, when it published work by many distinguished writers of the time; and the Saturday Review (founded 1924), which began as a purely literary magazine but broadened its scope in the 1940s. In 1972 a new ownership brought more changes. A powerful influence on American writing has been exerted by The New Yorker (founded 1925), mainly through its founder Harold Ross, a perfectionist among editors. It became famous for its cartoons and biographical studies. Finally, there has been no lack of “little magazines” to foster talent.
Europe
Among the numerous literary magazines in Europe, several in France and Germany in particular may be mentioned. The Mercure de France was revived in 1890 as an organ of the Symbolists; the influential Nouvelle Revue Française (1909) aimed at a fresh examination of literary and intellectual values; and the Nouvelles Littéraires (1922) was founded by André Gillon as a weekly of information, criticism, and bibliography. After World War II there appeared Jean-Paul Sartre’s left-wing monthly Les Temps Modernes (founded 1945), La Table Ronde (1948), and Les Lettres Nouvelles (1953). In Germany, political magazines included the radical Die Fackel (1899; “The Torch”) and Die neue Gesellschaft (1903–07; “The New Society”) of the Social Democrats. An important literary influence was Blätter für die Kunst, associated with the Neoromantic movement of Stefan George. The Nazi period imposed a break in development, but after World War II the liberal weekly Die Zeit and a number of literary journals, such as Westermanns Monatshefte, Neue deutsche Hefte, and Akzente, appeared.
The political involvement of the literary review was especially marked in the Soviet Union and Soviet-bloc countries. The Literaturnaya Gazeta (founded 1929) and the influential Novy Mir (founded 1925; “New World”) often became the centre of controversy in the Soviet Union when writers were condemned for their views or denied the opportunity to publish. This led to a strong underground press. In Czechoslovakia the Literárne Listy played a prominent part in the freedom movement of 1968 and was later suppressed at Soviet insistence, along with the Reportér and Student, leading to the start of several underground magazines. Sinn und Form (founded 1949), a Marxist critical journal in Berlin, was subject to temporary suspensions for publishing such authors as Sartre, Kafka, and Hemingway, whose works had been banned in East Germany.
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