Comfort (magazine)

"[1] In 1888, William H. Gannet created Comfort primarily as a means to advertise his patent medicine, Giant Oxien, a variant of The Moxie Nerve Food.

As Frank Luther Mott notes in his book, A History of American Magazines, the use of the "'club' device made the solicitor virtually a local subscription agent for the periodical.

[5] The practice of not collecting subscriptions fees went against the United States Post Office Department's criteria that required publications to maintain "a legitimate list of subscribers" in order to take advantage of the low second-class mailing rate of one-cent per pound.

In later years, Comfort went on to publish fiction written by more legitimate and well known authors such as Augusta Jane Evans, Mrs. Georgie Sheldon, Horatio Alger Jr., Charles Felton Pidgin, and L. M. Montgomery.

The Cubby Bear stories, written by Lena B. Ellingwood and illustrated by Harrison Cady, were the most regular children's fiction published in Comfort.