[1] According to John Sutherland, "[h]istorically the magazine's main achievement was to provide an outlet for [an] innovative group of illustrators [in] the 1860s.
[2] Bradbury and Evans responded by founding Once A Week, with veteran editor and abolitionist hero Samuel Lucas at the head.
[2][3] Notable writers included Mark Lemon, Shirley Brooks, Harriet Martineau (who wrote here under the pseudonym "From the Mountain"), and Tom Taylor.
[2] Helen Hoppner Coode, Punch's first woman cartoonist, also contributed illustrations to Once a Week,[4] this included drawings for the poem "Fairy May" written by C. W. Goodhart which was printed in the magazine in 1859.
[2] The magazine was purchased by James Rice, who owned it until 1873 when it was bought by George Manville Fenn; by then it was "a shadow of its former self".