The Boy's Own Paper, front page, 11 April 1891
Magazines intended for boys fall into one of three classifications. These are
comics which tell the story by means of strip cartoons; story papers which have several short stories; and
pulp magazines which have a single, but complete,
novella in them. The latter were not for the younger child and were often
detective or
western in content and were generally greater in cost. Several titles were published monthly whereas the other two categories were more frequent.
History
Victorian period
With the growth of education in the later part Nineteenth Century, (
Universal education started in England in 1871) demand was growing for reading material aimed at the juvenille market. While the first known edition of what would later become known as a "story paper" was
The Young Gentleman's Magazine, published in 1777 the first story paper to make an impact was
The Boys' and Girls' Penny Magazine, first published in September 1832. One of the first publications aimed at boys alone was
Every Boy's Magazine in 1863. In 1866,
Boys of England was introduced as a new type of publication, an eight page magazine that featured serial stories as well as articles and shorts of interests and was printed on cheap paper.
Numerous competitors quickly followed, with such titles as
Boy’s Leisure Hour,
Boys Standard,
Young Men of Great Britain, etc. As the price and quality of fiction was the same, these storypapers also fell under the general definition of Penny Dreadfuls (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 was published from 1879 to 1965 and
Boys' Friend from 1895 to 1927. Another magazine with a comparatively long life was
Chums, 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 and
The Magnet. The main writer for both was
Charles Hamilton who was to be an important figure in schools fiction until his death in 1960.
Between Wars
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, 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 D.C. Thompson.
During the same period as the comics like
Comic Cuts,
The Dandy and
The Beano in the strip cartoon form, started to appear.
One boy's magazine that does not conform to the above formats was
Modern Wonder. 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 combined with one of the remaining. By 1970 most of the publication with text had been replaced by new weeklies of the
strip cartoon type. This type of boy's magazine had largely been only available as imports from North America. There had also been a similar introduction of strip novels for adults.
As the 20th century drew to a close, many of these magazines had become collector's items, and from being worthless paper, copies became highly desirable with high prices attached to them.
Listing of Publications
Story papers
- The Boys’ Friend 1895 to 1927
- The Boy’s Own Paper 1879 to 1967
The Big Five (Tuppenny Bloods)
- Thomson's Adventure - from 1921 to 1961
- Thomson's Rover - from 1922 to 1961
- Thomson's Skipper - from 1930 to 1941
- Thomson's Hotspur - from 1933 to 1959 ( Red Circle School stories)
- Thomson's Wizard - from 1922 to 1963
Comics
- Thomson's The Dandy - from 1937 (still publishing) - a strip comic
- Thomson's The Beano - from 1938 (still publishing) - a strip comic
- Tiger - from 1954 to 1985 - a strip comic
- Eagle - from 1950 to 1994 (with a gap in publication) - a strip comic
- The Champion was published during the period 1939-45 (probably between 1922 and 1955)
Other
- Modern Wonder (later Modern World) - from 1937 to 1941
See also
