British Boy's Magazines - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Magazines intended for boys fall into one of three classifications. These are comic

Comic book

A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

s which tell the story by means of strip cartoons; story paper

Story paper

*This article is about British Story papers. For the U.S. version, see Dime novel.A story paper is a periodical publication similar to a literary magazine, but featuring illustrations and text stories, and aimed towards children and teenagers...

s which have several short stories; and pulp magazines which have a single, but complete, novella

Novella

A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...

in them. The latter were not for the younger child and were often detective

Detective (novel)

Detective is a novel by Arthur Hailey. It was written in 1997 and it was the author's last book. Hailey vividly depicts the work of the Homicide department, its background and investigation methods, all put into a thrilling plot with many unexpected turns and surprises.-Plot:Detective is the story...

or western

Western fiction

Western fiction is a genre of literature set in the American Old West frontier and typically set from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth century. Well-known writers of Western fiction include Zane Grey from the early 1900s and Louis L'Amour from the mid 20th century...

in content and were generally greater in cost. Several titles were published monthly whereas the other two categories were more frequent.

Early 19th-century boys literature

In 1828 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, and in 1829 in Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, an encyclopedia

Encyclopedia

An encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge....

for boys by William Clarke was published, titled The Boy's Own Book: A Complete Encyclopedia of all the Diversions, Athletic, Scientific, and Recreative, of Boyhood and Youth. According to sports historian Robert William Henderson, "It was a tremendous contrast to the juvenile books of the period, which emphasized piety, morals and instruction of mind and soul; it must have been received with whoops of delight by the youngsters of both countries." The encyclopedia was frequently updated and reprinted through the end of the century.

Victorian period

With the growth of education in the later part of the 19th century (universal education started in England in 1871), demand was growing for reading material aimed at the juvenile market. The first known edition of what would later become known as a "story paper" had been the unsuccessful monthly Young Gentleman's Magazine, published in 1777 and discontinued after six editions. The first story paper to make an impact was The Boys' and Girls' Penny Magazine, first published in September 1832.

The first successful serial publication aimed at boys alone, and one of the most influential, was Samuel Beeton's weekly Boy's Own Magazine, published from 1855 to 1890. Between 1855 and 1920, over a dozen weekly serials by various publishers were created with the copycat title Boys' Own
Boys' Own
Boys' Own or Boy's Own or Boys Own, is the title of a varying series of similarly titled magazines, story papers, and newsletters published at various times and by various publishers, in the UK and the U.S., from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century, for pre-teen and teenage...

.

Other story papers begun midcentury included Every Boy's Magazine in 1863, and in 1866, Boys of England
Boys of England
Boys of England was a British boys' periodical issued weekly from 1866 to 1899, "the leading boys' periodical of the nineteenth century".Boys of England was edited by the publisher and former Chartist Edwin J. Brett. By the 1870s it had a circulation of 250,000, and a mainly working-class readership...

. Numerous competitors quickly followed, including Boy’s Leisure Hour, Boys Standard, Young Men of Great Britain, etc. As the price and quality of fiction was the same, many of these storypapers also fell under the general definition of Penny Dreadful

Penny Dreadful

A penny dreadful was a type of British fiction publication in the 19th century that usually featured lurid serial stories appearing in parts over a number of weeks, each part costing an penny...

s (also known as Penny Bloods or Blood and Thunders in their early days). Few of these publications lasted more than a couple of years.

Some, however, did last; Boy's Own Paper
Boy's Own Paper
The Boy's Own Paper was a British story paper aimed at young and teenage boys, published from 1879 to 1967.-Publishing history:The idea for the publication was first raised in 1878 by the Religious Tract Society as a means to encourage younger children to read and also instil Christian morals...

was published from 1879 to 1967 and Boys' Friend from 1895 to 1927. Another magazine with a comparatively long life was Chums

Chums (paper)

Chums was a boys' weekly newspaper started in 1892 that was the official paper of the British Boy Scouts and British Boys' Naval Brigade . The publisher also gathered the weekly paper into monthly and annual editions...

, which started in 1892 and survived until 1934. It had stories about animals and sports as well as many about young people. Chums in its early days worked closely with Baden Powell, but after a disagreement with him became quite derisive about the Scouts. In 1909, however, it became the official Journal for the British Boy Scouts, a break-away group from Baden Powell's Scout movement.

Early 20th century

As the youth market established itself as an important part of the publishing industry, demand was perceived to exist for fiction which featured boys themselves in a leading role. This demand was to be met by stories about the public schools, a world where adults could be relegated to the background and where youths could be presented as having a degree of independence not possible elsewhere.

The publisher who took the lead in this period was Trapp Holmes with magazines such as Smiles, Funny Cuts and Vanguard. This last paper was a short lived paper, published from 1907 to 1909 and was a pioneer of the school stories genre.

Amalgamated Press soon entered the market in started to two of most famous boy's papers, The Gem
The Gem
The Gem was a story paper published in Great Britain by Amalgamated Press in the early 20th century, predominately featuring the activities of boys at the fictional school "St. Jim's". These stories were all written using the pen-name of Martin Clifford, the majority by Charles Hamilton who was...

and The Magnet
The Magnet
The Magnet was a United Kingdom weekly boys' story paper published by Amalgamated Press. It ran from 1908 to 1940, publishing a total of 1683 issues. Each issue contained a long school story about the boys of Greyfriars School, a fictional public school located somewhere in Kent, and were written...

. The main writer for both was Charles Hamilton

Charles Hamilton (writer)

Charles Harold St. John Hamilton , was an English writer, specializing in writing long-running series of stories for weekly magazines about recurrent casts of characters, his most frequent and famous genre being boys' public school stories, though he also dealt with other genres...

who was to be an important figure in schools fiction until his death in 1961.

Inter-war period

In between the two world wars there appeared in Britain a number of weekly magazines or papers aimed at boys between the ages of 8 and 16. Their price was 2d (two pence) and they were consequently known as the "Tuppenny bloods". They were printed on newsprint

Newsprint

Newsprint is a low-cost, non-archival paper most commonly used to print newspapers, and other publications and advertising material. It usually has an off-white cast and distinctive feel. It is designed for use in printing presses that employ a long web of paper rather than individual sheets of...

, with a coloured front cover. Inside there were short stories, with illustrations and often in a serial form. Some factual article were included. They were published by D C Thomson and known as the "Big Five".

Meanwhile, The Magnet and Gem continued to publish school stories along with newcomers like Nelson Lee and spin-offs such as The Schoolboy's Own Library which reprinted earlier stories. Such papers however, were continually losing circulation.

During the same period as the comics like Comic Cuts, The Dandy
The Dandy
The Dandy is a long running children's comic published in the United Kingdom by D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd. The first issue was printed in 1937 and it is the world's third longest running comic, after Detective Comics and Il Giornalino...

and The Beano
The Beano
The Beano is a British children's comic, published by D.C. Thomson & Co and is arguably their most successful.The comic first appeared on 30 July 1938, and was published weekly. During the Second World War,The Beano and The Dandy were published on alternating weeks because of paper and ink...

in the strip cartoon form, started to appear.

One boy's magazine that does not conform to the above formats was Modern Wonder
Modern Wonder (factual boys magazine)
Modern Wonder was a largely factual magazine aimed at boys and young men. It had many articles and pictures on science, engineering and warfare etc. In some of the magazines, the Flash Gordon comic strip is printed in colour on the back cover. Issues were usually around 20 pages in length, with...

. It had a comparatively short life, starting in 1937 and closing down in 1941. It differed from the other magazines by mainly having articles of a technical nature, instead of all fiction. There were some short stories and a serial included, but it was largely well illustrated articles about modern inventions.

Post-war period

Several new boy's comics were started in the 1950s, Tiger and Eagle being long lasting. The characters in the strip of these two comics were mainly human, unlike those in Beano and Dandy. The Eagle had strips such as Dan Dare and PC 49 drawn without distortion.

By the middle of the 1960s, the taste of the youth of Britain was changing. Television had, for many, displaced reading. The improvement of public libraries also hastened the end of some magazines. As a magazine stopped publication it was sometimes merged with one of the remaining magazines. By 1970 most of the publications with text had been replaced by new weeklies of the strip cartoon type. Previously, this type of boy's magazine had largely only been available in the United Kingdom as imports from North America. Strip novels for adults were also introduced.

By the end of the 20th century, many of these magazines had become collector's items. From being worthless paper, copies became highly desirable with high prices attached to them.

Story papers

Adventure
Aldine Adventure Library
The Boys’ Friend 1895 to 1927
Boys’ Fun
The Boys’ Herald
Boys’ Journal
The Boys’ Leisure Hour
Boys’ Magazine
The Boy’s Own Magazine
Boy's Own Paper
Boy's Own Paper
The Boy's Own Paper was a British story paper aimed at young and teenage boys, published from 1879 to 1967.-Publishing history:The idea for the publication was first raised in 1878 by the Religious Tract Society as a means to encourage younger children to read and also instil Christian morals...

1879 to 1967
The Boys’ Realm
The Bullseye
The Champion
Chums 1892 to 1934
Detective Weekly
Every Boy’s Magazine
The Gem
The Gem
The Gem was a story paper published in Great Britain by Amalgamated Press in the early 20th century, predominately featuring the activities of boys at the fictional school "St. Jim's". These stories were all written using the pen-name of Martin Clifford, the majority by Charles Hamilton who was...

1907 to 1940
The Greyfriars Herald
The Halfpenny Marvel
The Magnet 1908 to 1940
The Marvel
The Modern Boy
The Modern Boy
The Modern Boy was a British Boys magazine published between 1928 and 1939 by the Amalgamated Press and ran to some 610 issues. First launched on 11 February 1928 and always costing just 2d , the magazine ran initially to 523 weekly issues until 12 February 1938...
Nelson Lee Library
Oracle
Pluck
Schoolboys’ Own Library
The Union Jack
Vanguard 1907 to 1909
The Young Englishman
The Wizard

The Big Five (Tuppenny Bloods)

Thomson's Adventure - from 1921 to 1961
Thomson's Rover
The Rover (comics)
The Rover was a British boys' comic which started in 1922. The comic merged with Adventure in 1961 and later merged with The Wizard in 1963. The comic eventually folded in 1973....

- from 1922 to 1961
Thomson's Skipper - from 1930 to 1941
Thomson's Hotspur
Hotspur (comics)
The Hotspur was a British boys' paper published by D. C. Thomson & Co. It was launched on 2 September 1933 as a story paper, the last of the 'Big Five'...

- from 1933 to 1959 ( Red Circle School stories)
Thomson's Wizard
The Wizard (DC Thomson)
The Wizard was launched as a weekly British story paper on 22 September 1922, published by It was merged with The Rover in September 1963, becoming Rover and Wizard, and renamed The Rover in August 1969. The Wizard was relaunched on 14 February 1970, and continued until 10 June...

- from 1922 to 1963

Comics

Thomson's The Dandy
The Dandy
The Dandy is a long running children's comic published in the United Kingdom by D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd. The first issue was printed in 1937 and it is the world's third longest running comic, after Detective Comics and Il Giornalino...

- from 1937 (still publishing) - a strip comic
Thomson's The Beano
The Beano
The Beano is a British children's comic, published by D.C. Thomson & Co and is arguably their most successful.The comic first appeared on 30 July 1938, and was published weekly. During the Second World War,The Beano and The Dandy were published on alternating weeks because of paper and ink...

- from 1938 (still publishing) - a strip comic
Tiger
Tiger (comic strip)
Tiger is an American comic strip created by cartoonist Bud Blake. Launched May 3, 1965, the popular, long running strip about a group of suburban boyhood pals was distributed by King Features Syndicate to 400 newspapers worldwide at its peak....

- from 1954 to 1985 - a strip comic
Eagle - from 1950 to 1994 (with a gap in publication) - a strip comic
The Champion
The Champion (comics)
The Champion was a British weekly boys' story paper published by Amalgamated Press, which ran from January 28, 1922 until March 19, 1955. Its original editor was F. Addington Symonds. From 1929 until 1940 it had a monthly, pocket-sized companion paper, The Champion Library, containing characters...

was published during the period 1939-45 (probably between 1922 and 1955)

External links

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