Jennie BatchelorNov 11, 2022
When I am asked about how many people actually read the Lady's Magazine (1770-1832) I can only give the best estimates of circulation figures (15k monthly copies at its height) but I can talk about reach. My usual 1st go-to is George Washington taking the magazine back from London to Mount Vernon. But I have now got a tonne of newspaper ads about its European and wider circulation. This is from Tasmania (The Hobart Town Courier). #periodicals #c18 #histodons
Show threadAileen FyfeNov 11, 2022

@Jen
What date was the advert? Are these recent issues?

Asking because I've realised from looking at #scientific #journals in this period that periodicals for the international trade often travelled as bound volumes (not issues; thus, not immediately); and that those volumes also circulated through the secondhand trade (sometimes decades later). But I'm not sure if back issues of the Lady's Mag were in demand in the same way as back issues of Philosophical Transactions...

Show threadJennie Batchelor
@aileenfyfe Great question. Yes. This is 1833 few months after the bound volumes were compiled. I know a lot of the copies of the magazine that made it to America made it there in bound form too, but in Europe (or France at least) I can monthly issues being circulated. One interesting thing is how fashion reports from British magazines make it elsewhere into the world and the implications of the time lag. There very much was a market for back issues.
Nov 11, 2022 at 2:55pmWeb
Show threadDave MazellaNov 11, 2022
@Jen @aileenfyfe the trade in used bound volumes makes sense to me, esp for provincial libraries, but do we know about reprintings or other kinds of subsequent collections of the LM like the Spectator reprints?
Show threadJennie BatchelorNov 12, 2022
@mazdam @aileenfyfe great question, Dave. There are lots of ads showing that booksellers/publishers stored long back catalogues of the LM, Belle Assemblee etc. so new readers could buy back issues/volumes. But I know of no reprints. I think magazines don’t lend themselves to reprinting in the same way as essay-periodicals. That said some serial fiction in the magazine was later published in volume form, of course.
Show threadAileen FyfeNov 14, 2022

@Jen @mazdam

My examples come from Philosophical Transactions (a v diff sort of periodical...)

1) In the 18thC, there weren't reprints, but there were 'abridgements'. By squeezing 21 volumes of back run into just 3 vols in 1705-8, entrepreneurial third-parties made the contents vastly more available. There may have been twice as many copies of the abridgements in circulation as the originals. More abridgements followed, to 1809 (see pp.133ff of our book https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/187262 )
#bookhistodon

A History of Scientific Journals

Show threadAileen FyfeNov 14, 2022

@Jen @mazdam

2) For translators, abridgement was also more common than full-translation. (Too difficult to keep up with regular issue of a periodical, in the 18thC). Some translators translated the English abridgement. Others made their own abridgement.

Show threadAileen FyfeNov 14, 2022

@Jen @mazdam

3) But, to get to the point about reprints: in the 20thC, there were full-reprints of the old Phil Trans. Photographic methods of generating litho plates (i.e. avoiding the need to reset all the text) made it possible to reprint the 17th and 18thC volumes (and even the 19thC vols) in the 1940s-70s. Also, microfiche and microcard editions. (e.g. p.486 of our book)