Lady's Magazine

The Lady's Magazine; or Entertaining Companion for the Fair Sex, Appropriated Solely to Their Use and Amusement, was an early British women's magazine produced monthly from 1770 until 1847. Priced at six pence per copy, its publication began in August 1770 by the London bookseller John Coote and the publisher John Wheble. It featured articles on fiction, poetry, fashion, music, and social gossip.

The magazine claimed a readership base of sixteen thousand, a sum that has been considered a success when analysing the country's contemporary literacy levels and underdeveloped printing technologies. The Lady's Magazine dominated the market for most of its run, and its success led to imitations like the Lady's Monthly Museum and the New Lady's Magazine.

Prior to the emergence of magazines in the early eighteenth century, information and news in Great Britain were primarily distributed through pamphlets, newspapers, and broadsides. The concept of a magazine slowly developed in reaction to government regulations, which sought to control political propaganda; in 1712 the government passed a Stamp Tax on each single- or half-sheet publication, nearly doubling the price of newspapers and some periodicals. Publishers seeking to avoid or pay a lower tax did so by expanding their single-sheet writings into lengthier publications, classifying them as pamphlets or journals. Many also switched their publication schedules by producing works weekly or monthly, rather than daily or semi-weekly. The Gentleman's Magazine, an early publication established in 1731, avoided a new tax on stamped paper by producing a monthly publication that claimed to feature the reprinting of news (rather than the transmission of news, which the tax targeted).

In addition to the desire to avoid government regulations and taxes, magazines were established as a new medium in which to convey information to a larger group of readers, which could be reached through Britain's growing transportation network. The Lady's Magazine was not the first women's magazine. It was conceived by the London bookseller John Coote and the publisher John Wheble, and first appeared in print in August 1770. John Huddlestone Wynne, an early editor of the magazine, also edited several other contemporary publications. The Lady's Magazine dominated the market from its founding to 1830. It claimed a readership base of sixteen thousand, a sum the 18th-century scholar Ros Ballaster considers a success when analysing the country's contemporary literacy levels and underdeveloped printing technologies. Its success led to imitations like the Lady's Monthly Museum and the New Lady's Magazine.

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