The Lady's Magazine

For the similarly named publication printed in Boston, Massachusetts, see Ladies' Magazine.
The Lady's Magazine – August 1770
London fashionable walking dresses, July 1812, including a spencer

The Lady's Magazine; or Entertaining Companion for the Fair Sex, Appropriated Solely to Their Use and Amusement, was an early British women's magazine published monthly from 1770 until 1847. Priced at sixpence per copy, it began publication in August 1770 by the London bookseller John Coote and the publisher John Wheble. It featured articles on fiction, poetry, fashion, music, and social gossip and was, according to the Victoria and Albert Museum, "the first woman's magazine to enjoy lasting success."[1]

The magazine claimed a readership of 16,000, a figure that has been considered high when contemporary literacy levels and underdeveloped printing technologies are taken into account. The Lady's Magazine dominated the market for most of its run, and led to imitations like the Lady's Monthly Museum and the New Lady's Magazine.

  1. ^ "Fashionable Dresses in the Rooms in Weymouth 1774", Victoria and Albert Museum Collections. Accessed 20 Sept. 2022.