In 1690, London publisher John Dunton founded The Athenian Mercury, the first major periodical in England or Scotland designed to appeal to a general readership.

Dunton's Athenian Mercury dealt with a range of topics such as science, religion, as well as private life, including sexuality.

Because of the presumed interest of women readers in domesticity, courtship, and marriage, the editors decided to devote the first Tuesday of each month to such topics, announced this policy on 3 June 1691, and invited "reasonable questions sent to us by the fair sex".

Dunton is generally assumed to have been the editor although he did not acknowledge it[2] and formally the editorship was given over to a "dimly realised Ladies Society"[3] that promised to respond to "all the most nice and curious questions concerning love, marriage, behaviour, dress and humour of the female sex, whether virgins, wives, or widows."

[1] One commentator has speculated that the run was so short because the new venture risked drawing away the women readers The Athenian Mercury itself cultivated.