In December 1840, Charlotte Brontë wrote in a letter to Hartley
Coleridge that she wished 'with all [her] heart' that she 'had been
born in time to contribute to the Lady's magazine'. Nearly two centuries
later, the cultural and literary importance of a monthly publication
that for six decades championed women's reading and women's writing has
yet to be documented. This book offers the first sustained account of
The Lady's Magazine. Across six chapters devoted to the publication's
eclectic and evolving contents, as well as its readers and contributors,
The Lady's Magazine (1770-1832) and the Making of Literary History
illuminates the periodical's achievements and influence, and reveals
what this vital period of literary history looks like when we see it
anew through the lens of one of its most long-lived and popular
publications.