Category:The Argosy

Title: The Argosy

Editor: Charles W. Wood

Publisher: Richard Bentley & Son

The Argosy was a monthly magazine published with the subtitle “A Magazine Of Tales, Travels, Essays And Poems.” It was started by Alexander Strahan in 1865 and was successful with the bourgeois class. Under Strahan, it began as a complement to his other journal Good Words, and as a rival to The Cornhill Magazine.

The magazine underwent a few ownership changes throughout its run. Strahan sold off the magazine when he disliked the content of a Sensational novel written by Charles Reade. However, Reade’s story played a helping hand in stamping The Argosy as a publication known for its Sensational texts. The magazine’s sales, readership and appeal increased, resulting in a price increase from sixpence a month to a shilling, none of which Strahan wanted anything to do with. Strahan sold the publication to Mrs. Henry Wood, who catapulted Sensational publications into a “respectable genre.” She also used the publication as a place to publish her own fiction stories. Additionally, Mrs. Wood’s long running control over the magazine allowed a platform for higher publications by women writers, blurring the “critical trend of creating distinct boundaries between high and low culture.”^[1]

The Argosy also printed various genres of short stories, poems, and illustrations from various authors like Margaret Oliphant, Christina Rossetti, and George Macdonald. The written works do not necessarily contain a common theme, but alongside Sensational texts, “placed within the covers of what appeared to be a conventional literary magazine … sensational poems and anodyne reflections on the meaning of life” were also published.^[2] After 1871, The Argosy was sold to Richard Bentley, which continued to run for another 30 years until it's decline in 1901.^[3][4] The magazine managed to publish a total of 418 issues, every month from December 1865 to September 1901.^[5]

Publishers:

• 1865-1867: Alexander Strahan

• 1867-1871: Charles W. Wood

• 1872-1897: Richard Bentley & Son

• 1897-1899: Macmillan

• 1900-1901: George Allen

Editors:

• 1865-1867: Isa Craig

• 1867-1887: Mrs. Henry Wood

• 1887-1898: Charles W. Wood

• 1899-1901: Herbert Morrah

Notes

1. ↑ [1] Waterloo Directory for The Argosy, Retrieved 14 February 2014.
2. ↑ [2] Victorian Web, Retrieved 11 February 2014.
3. ↑ [3] Victorian Web, Retrieved 11 February 2014.
4. ↑ [4] The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction, Retrieved 11 February 2014.
5. ↑ [5] Victorian Contexts, Retrieved 14 February 2014.

Submitted by: Hyoung, Sul: Section 1, Winter 2014