Lady’s Magazine (1770–1832) and the Making of Literary History

Jennie Batchelor is Professor of Eighteenth-Century Studies at the University of Kent. She has published widely on eighteenth-century women’s writing, material culture, gender, sexuality and the body and women’s periodicals. Her most recent books include Women’s Periodicals and Print Culture in Britain, 1690s–1820s, co-edited with Manushag N. Powell (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018) and Women’s Work: Labour, Gender, Authorship, 1750-1830 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010). She also co-devised (with Alison Larkin) the popular history/craft book Jane Austen Embroidery (London: Pavilion 2020), which reprints and contextualises 15 needlework projects from the Lady’s Magazine for modern stitchers.

• Acknowledgements List of Illustrations Preface Introduction1. Origins: the birth of the women’s magazine 2. Beginnings: the making of the Lady’s Magazine (1770–2) 3. Modes, Media and Miscellaneity: the contents of the Lady’s Magazine 4. Authors, Readers, Writing Cultures 5. Rivals: mutual improvements and the changing face of the women’s magazine 6. Achievements and Legacies: the Lady’s Magazine in literary history Afterword Select Bibliography

One cannot help but admire the convincing and detailed discussion of so many facets of this protean periodical. Batchelor seems have ferreted out every detail and every contributor, even the most elusive, to construct her argument in favor of appreciating the magazine’s role in the period. This monograph is an exemplary work of scholarship. One might add that the prose and the argument are engaging and well supplied with illustrations, even as the Lady’s Magazine was.