SOURCE: “Eighteenth-Century Women's Magazines,” in Women's Worlds: Ideology, Femininity and the Woman's Magazine, pp. 43-74. London: Macmillan, 1991.

In the following essay, the authors discuss the nature of women-oriented periodicals in the eighteenth century.

In 1745, a correspondent to The Female Spectator wrote seeking advice from its editorial board on the respective merits of three suitors for her hand. Bellamonte opens her letter with the declaration:

Dear Female Sage, I have a vast opinion of your Wit; and you may be convinced of it by my asking your Advice;—a compliment, I assure you, I never paid to my own Mother, or to any other Soul besides yourself.

(vol. 2, p. 105)

Here, it appears, we have a form and tone instantly recognisable to the twentieth-century reader of women's magazines. The magazine functions as surrogate ‘family’, providing an intimate and private space for the discussion of issues to which even, or perhaps...