Category:Cassell's Family Magazine

Title(s)

"Cassell's Illustrated Family Paper" (1853-67)

"Cassell's Magazine" (1867-74)

"Cassell's Family Magazine" (1874-97)

"Cassell's Magazine of Fiction" (1897-1930)

Editor(s)

John Cassell (1853-65)

Wilkie Collins (1870-1874)

George M. Fenn (1870)

Manville Fenn (1870-1874)

H.R. Haweis (1869)

H.G. Bonavia Hunt (Rev.) (1874-1876)

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

John Lovell (1868-1869)

Max Pemberton (Sir) (1896-1906)

William Moy Thomas (1867-1868)

Overview

Cassell’s Magazine was a popular monthly magazine that ran from December 1853 until December 1930; in that time period, it underwent four changes in the title. The magazine’s namesake, John Cassell, was the principle editor of the work until his death in 1865; his publishing company kept the magazine going after his passing with such editors as Wilkie Collins, Joseph Sheridan La Fanu, and Sir Max Pemberton. The magazine specialized in printing “sensational” entertainment pieces, including a serialization of Rudyard Kipling’s novel "Kim."^[1]

The purpose of the journal was mainly to entertain and give common advice to its middle-class readership. Topics of advice range from month-specific gardening tips to simple medical cures and treatments. There is a section about women’s fashions, as well as a section detailing several technological and scientific ideas, experiments, and the successful products from those experiments. As for entertainment, each issue begins with a section from a serialized novel that takes up several pages. Other serialized novels are also included, though they are not given the same space as the opening novel. In addition, there are various poems scattered throughout the issue, as well as songs, detailed illustrations, and short stories.

For Further Reading

“Cassell’s Illustrated Family Magazine,” The Waterloo Directory of English Newspapers and Periodicals, 1800-1900, Series 2, Ed. John S. North, Waterloo, Ont: North Waterloo Academic Press, Web, 29 Oct. 2015.

Thomas, Sue. "Indexes to Fiction in Cassell's Family Magazine, Later Cassell's Magazine (1874-1910)." Victorian Fiction Research Guides, XII. St. Lucia, Australia: Victorian Research Unit, Department of English, University of Queensland, 1987. "Victorian Secrets." 2013.

Notes

1. ↑ “Cassell’s Illustrated Family Magazine,” The Waterloo Directory of English Newspapers and Periodicals, 1800-1900, Series 2, Ed. John S. North, Waterloo, Ont: North Waterloo Academic Press, Web, 29 Oct. 2015.

Submitted by: Miller, Kate: section 1, Winter 2011

Submitted by: Leslee Thorne-Murphy