The magazine was published in London, but was able to offer extensive coverage of events nationally because the editor, John Wheble, had established a wide-ranging network of informants, writers and contributors throughout the shires.
Occasionally the magazine would copy articles from newspapers, but the coverage it offered was excellent, embodied by the detailed calendar of forthcoming events that appeared every month.
Improvements in communications generated rapid information dissemination and this inevitably favoured the daily and weekly press rather than the monthly, especially those that began devoting serious coverage to sport.
However, it was the editor's decision to employ the author Nimrod at lavish cost, from 1822 to 1827, to furnish beautifully written pieces on fox-hunting, that commenced the transformation of the magazine.
Duelling between gentleman protagonists with pistols or swords was so common at the time, that the magazine had a regular monthly column called "Affairs of Honour" devoted to duels.