WOMEN ADVISING WOMEN
Advice Books, Manuals and Journals for Women, 1450-1837

Part 3: The Lady's Magazine, 1770-1800

This path-breaking project brings together early women's journals, ephemeral publications and didactic literature.  It will be invaluable for all those studying the history of women, family life, material culture, metropolitan and provincial culture, 18th century literature, taste and Romanticism.

Part 3 offers a complete run of The Lady's Magazine from 1770 to 1800.  This has been pieced together from copies held at Birmingham Central Libraries, the British Library, and Cambridge University Library, as no library holds a complete set.

The Lady's Magazine was "the first objective and professional effort to create a magazine acceptable for women" (Cynthia White, 'Women's Magazines, 1693-1968') and combined advice, poetry, short stories, reader's letters, criticism, news, fashion reports and articles on leading women of the day.  It is a major source for scholars of gender studies and for all those interested in:

• Women's writing.
• Gothic tales and popular readership.
• Changes in the ambitions and interests of women.
• Role models, conversation, sensibility and politeness.
• The education of women and the cult of appearances.