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Our Victorian Magazine Collection:  The Girl's Own Paper

Home > About Our Victorian Magazines > The Girl's Own Paper VictorianVoices.net has made all our volumes of The Girl's Own Paper available on Archive.org. Visit the magazine pages for download links, or visit our magazine download page to see all available magazines. The Girl's Own Paper [GOP] is the magazine that launched VictorianVoices.net. I stumbled across it in a bookstore in Hastings, East Sussex (Boulevard Books, if anyone wishes to visit) and was instantly hooked. For sheer variety, there really is no other Victorian magazine quite like the GOP. It was founded in 1880 as a 16-page penny weekly paper published by the Religious Tract Society, which eventually became Lutterworth Press (which still exists). The magazine launched in October, so the bound annuals include the issues from October through the following September. (Hence, the annual for 1881 would have been issued in October 1881, and would include the issues from October 1880 through September 1881.) Readers also frequently bound their own volumes, and these reader "annuals" often included the year's extra summer and/or Christmas numbers. Additional engraved (and later color) plates were also bound into the annuals. The Girl's Own Paper provides a unique look at the changing world of the Victorian woman. Initially, the magazine was fairly conservative in its outlook, and promoted the traditional virtues of Victorian womanhood. However, its contributors soon began to point out the benefits of higher education for the Victorian woman, as well as the reality that even a "gentlewoman" might need to work for a living. Fashion writers weighed in on the dangers of corsets and other fashion hazards. An early article allowed that perhaps women might be permitted to engage in sports if they did so only amongst friends and not with any sort of competitive zeal; a few years later the magazine abounded with how-to articles enabling women to engage in a host of sports, including the much-bemoaned "cycling craze." Craft articles, far from being limited to pieces on embroidery and knitting, encouraged "girls" to take up wood-carving, metal-work and many other physically challenging projects. Many articles covered the growing number of career paths available for "gentlewomen." The magazine was edited by Charles Peters for the first 28 years. His goal was "to foster and develop that which was highest and noblest in the girlhood and womanhood of England.... putting the best things first, and banishing the worthless from his pages." On his death in 1907, the editorship passed to Flora Klickmann, who made the magazine a monthly and changed its name to The Girl's Own Paper and Woman's Magazine. Despite being founded by the Religious Tract Society, the GOP managed to avoid being impossibly preachy. What preachiness there was, generally was confined to its fiction and poetry. (Under Klickmann's tenure, the magazine became more overtly evangelical.) Nonfiction articles covered the obvious "women's" basics of fashion, cooking, childcare and household management - but from there, the magazine branched out with articles on nature, science, government, history, archaeology, folklore, and more. Its subject range is perhaps the most diverse of any women's magazine of the era. Klickman edited the magazine until 1931. It continued to undergo various changes in format and content, and finally ceased publication in 1956. VictorianVoices.net brings you articles from the Victorian era of The Girl's Own Paper - from its founding in 1880 through 1902. MORE INFORMATION: The Girl's Own Paper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl's_Own_Paper Highlights from The Girl's Own Paper http://highlightsfromthegirlsownpaper.blogspot.com/ This blog has actual text transcriptions of many of the articles from GOP. The Girl's Own Paper Index http://maths.dur.ac.uk/~tpcc68/GOP/welcome.html A Short History of the G.O.P. http://maths.dur.ac.uk/~tpcc68/GOP/history.shtml Great-Grandmama's Weekly, by Wendy Forrester A book providing a good overview of the GOP, along with information about many of its contributors.

View the Issues On This Site: 1880 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902