The Lady's Magazine

It featured articles on fiction, poetry, fashion, music, and social gossip and was, according to the Victoria and Albert Museum, "the first woman's magazine to enjoy lasting success.

Prior to the emergence of magazines in the early eighteenth century, information and news in Great Britain were primarily distributed through pamphlets, newspapers, and broadsides.

The concept of a magazine slowly developed in reaction to new laws which sought to control political propaganda; in 1712 the government passed a Stamp Tax on each single- or half-sheet publication, nearly doubling the price of newspapers and some periodicals.

In addition to the desire to avoid government regulations and taxes, magazines were established as a new medium in which to convey information to a larger group of readers, which could be reached through Britain's growing transportation network.

[10] It claimed a readership of 16,000, a sum the 18th-century scholar Ros Ballaster considered a success when analysing the country's contemporary literacy levels and underdeveloped printing technologies.

This Dr Cook also occasionally included mentions of sexuality, often with a sense of tawdry humour; one June 1775 article, for instance, spoke of fertility and hair colour, concluding that redheads have "the finest skins... and generally become the best breeders of the nation".

[20] Ballister considers the mention of these subjects to be "progressive" for the era, and speculates that the magazine was able to print them due to the doctor's "elderly eccentricity", gender, and professional status.