Category:The Illuminated Magazine

Title: The Illuminated Magazine

Editor: Douglas Jerrold and William J. Linton

Publisher: Cook and Co., Ingram and Cook, William Stevens

The Illuminated Magazine was a short-lived publication of miscellaneous articles and literature spanning 1843 to 1845.^[1] Owned by Herbert Ingram, the magazine was first edited by Douglas Williams Jerrold, the highest-paid journalist on the famous Punch magazine, who left The Illuminated Magazine in October of 1844 to work as the editor of his own magazine, Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine.^[2] The publication was then edited by William J. Linton until its last publication in 1845. What had hoped to be a magazine interesting enough to appeal to the common folk had met an untimely end.

The magazine had Chartist leanings and was thus geared to appeal to the common people. This appeal came from the variety of works present in the magazine. As the preface of the first volume states, “The readers of the Illuminated Magazine, like the lovers of pine-apples, may choose some for one flavor, some for another, and some, - and we trust the greater number – for all” ("Preface" 1.1). But the variety of articles was meant to serve the greater goal of serving the lower classes by providing them access to literature and art.

Each magazine issue focused on reviewing current books, discussing politics with a Chartist bent, providing enjoyable fiction and short poetry, and presenting exciting travels to far-off lands. Periodical articles appeared on the life of common Londoners, in Mark Lemon’s “The Boys of London,” and travel to foreign lands, in “Pictorial Passages from the Life of Theophilus Smudge.”^[3] Although many respected journalists of the day regularly contributed to the magazine, Douglas Jerrold ultimately considered The Illuminated Magazine a failure.

Notes

1. ↑ WD
2. ↑ Fryckstedt, Monica, "Douglas Jerrold's Shilling Magazine," Victorian Periodicals Review 19.1 (Spring, 1986): 2-27. Web.
3. ↑ The Illuminated Magazine May to October 1843:1-238. Google Books. Web.

Submitted by: Armstrong, Rachel: section 1, Fall 2013