Historical magazines named Vanity Fair

The magazine's stature may be indicated by its contributors, which included Thomas Bailey Aldrich, William Dean Howells, Fitz-James O'Brien and Charles Farrar Browne.

Subtitled "A Weekly Show of Political, Social and Literary Wares", it was founded by Thomas Gibson Bowles, who aimed to expose the contemporary vanities of Victorian society.

Colonel Fred Burnaby provided £100 of the original £200 capital, and suggested the title Vanity Fair after Thackeray's popular satire on British society.

Bowles wrote much of the magazine himself under various pseudonyms such as "Jehu Junior", but contributors included Lewis Carroll, Willie Wilde, P. G. Wodehouse, Jessie Pope and Bertram Fletcher Robinson, with the latter editor from June 1904 to October 1906.

[7] Subjects included artists, athletes, royalty, statesmen, scientists, authors, actors, soldiers, religious personalities, business people and scholars.