Atalanta

//Atalanta// was a monthly magazine for middle-class young women published in London from October 1887 until September 1898(Atalanta,” //Waterloo Directory of English Newspapers and Periodicals: 1800-1900//). The well-known female writer L. T. Meade edited the magazine from its launch until 1893 when A. Balfour Symington became editor. Oliver Edwin took over for Symington in October 1896 and edited until the magazine stopped publishing because of financial difficulties. //Atalanta// switched publishers several times during its history. It was first published by Hatchards’ (1887-1890), then Trischler and Co. (1890-1892), Marshall Bros (1892-1896), and Marshall Russel and Co. Ltd. (1896-1898) (//Atalanta// Volumes 1-10, University of Victoria Special Collections). These publication changes reflect the difficulty //Atalanta// faced in turning a profit in girls’ magazines.

Few publishers conceived of girls as a viable market. Between 1870 and 1910 only ten per cent of all journal titles were aimed towards girls (Dixon 138). The Victorian emphasis on home and family did not envision girls keeping their youths long. Instead, they should learn homemaking from their mothers’ magazines and read religious pamphlets to prepare for a morally healthy marriage (138). Girls did not have same amount of leisure time allotted to their brothers, though girls often read boys’ magazines because they interested them more than women’s magazines or the general periodicals for both genders, such as //Aunt Judy’s Magazine// (139).

//Atalanta// was one of the few magazines for girls in the late Victorian period that addressed them as a demographic. We do not have reliable data for the exact ages of //Atalanta// readers but the contests for essays, crafts and poems in the magazine accept submission from young women between fourteen and twenty-five years old. The first editor, L. T. Meade, had experience writing and editing for girls; previously she had edited //Every Girl’s Magazine// and she retained this title as the subtitle of //Atalanta.// The first issue of //Atalanta// in October 1887features many readers of //Every Girl’s Magazine// writing in to express grief over the loss their magazine and excitement at its new incarnation as //Atalanta//(Volume 1: 54)//.// The magazine eventually supplanted //The Monthly Packet of Evening Reading for Young Members of the English Church// and //Atalanta// was able to set up its own office at 5A Paternoster Row(Onslow 154). The issues from 1892 to 1896 list the “Atalanta Office” as the place of publication(//Atalanta// Volumes 5-9). Meade put in long hours at the office during her editorship and struggled to balance her career and her family (Onslow 133). This coexistence of between public and domestic life leaks into //Atalanta.// Meade had long been involved in furthering women’s education (Mitchell 1). //Atalanta// contains articles on Greek tragedy and volcanoes right next to pieces on lace embroidery and cooking. “The Brown Owl,” a column that appeared in the magazine intermittently from April 1890 to 1898, advises on flirtation (Volume 4: 535) and marriage (Volume 4: 663) but also on girls’ cycling (Volume 5: 242) and the planet Mars (Volume 5: 682). Meade published many of the most famous authors of the day in //Atalanta// including Mrs. Oliphant, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Christina Rossetti (“Atalanta” //The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction//). The “Atalanta Scholarship and Reading Union,” which features in every issue, provided questions about literary texts for further study and offered scholarships. In the first issue//,// girls won these scholarships for writing essays on the death of //Every Girl’s Magazine// and the rise of //Atalanta//. The issue offers other prizes (one guinea for best and half guinea for second best) for essays on “perseverance,” scrapbooks for poor children, models of current ships and woodcarving(Volume 1: 54). //Atalanta// promotes the idea that girls should achieve and be rewarded for their achievements//,// especially in section titled “Employment for Girls” recommending appropriate jobs for middle class young ladies.

//Atalanta// emerged at a time when two anxieties pushed women into the workforce. The first was the idea of “superfluous women” which had started as a concept in the 1840s and gained momentum in the 1860s and 1870s (Holloway 36). Victorians estimated that there were many more women than men and thus thousands of women would have to remain unmarried and “superfluous.” Ideally, these women would remain at home under the care of wealthy male relative but the second anxiety, the perceived economic downturn during the 1880s and 1890s, triggered the feeling in many middle class men that “superfluous” women needed skills to support themselves (Holloway 38). The first “Employment for Girls” comforts readers declaring, “many girls work from choice, and are happier for doing so” even though “many gently born girls work from necessity” (//Atalanta// Volume 1: 56). Some recommendations in “Employment for Girls” include nursing (Volume 1: 112), typewriting (Volume 1: 233) and writing fiction (Volume 1: 145). Young ladies found writing fiction and poetry for periodicals attractive because it allowed them an occupation that could be performed at home (Mitchell “Careers for Girls” 110).

//Atalanta// also fostered a sense of social responsibility in its readers. In the first issue of the magazine, Meade introduces the magazine’s charity project: a cot in Rhyl Hopital in North Wales maintained for poor patients with some of the money from subscriptions. In the “Extra Supplement,” J. Wake reports on the hospital and other social issues, such as working-class poverty (Volume 1: 57).

Fiction in //Atalanta// (both serialized and short stories)tends to focus on domestic dramas, as in Mrs. Molesworth’s “Neighbours//”// (October 1887-March 1888) but also on adventure such as H.E. Hamilton King’s “A Tale of Three Lions” (October-December 1887). Poems in the magazine often addressed sentimental or seasonal subjects. Mary Macleod, who wrote for //Atalanta// from 1887 to 1893, writes verses on cats, fairies and various months of the year. However, //Atalanta// does include more serious religious and historical poetry. Christiana Rossetti’s poems “Exultate Deo” (Volume 2: 3) and “Yea, I have a Goodly Heritage” (Volume 1: 264) appear in //Atalanta//. Mary Macleod’s “Victus Victor” (Volume 2: 503) praises the work of Father Joseph Damien who tended leapers on Molokai island.

A. Balfour Symington and Edwin Oliver maintained the magazine’s educational tone but decreased the number of elaborate illustrations that surrounded many of the stories and poems in Meade’s era, likely because these became too expensive to print. //Atalanta// collapsed in September 1898 because it could not attract enough readers willing and able to pay six pence per issue (Dixon 140). Given that girls’ magazines typically had very short lives in the late nineteenth century, //Atalanta//’s eleven years are remarkable, especially since it spent those eleven years encouraging education, employment and social engagement in girls who would become adult women in the turbulent twentieth century. RM/Engl386/Fall2012/UVic


 * Works Cited**

//Atalanta// Volumes 1-10. Ed. L.T. Meade, A. Balfour Symington, Oliver Edwin. London: Hatchards’, Trischler and Co., Marshall Bros, Marshall Russel and Co. Ltd., October 1887-September 1897. The University of Victoria’s Special Collections in the McPherson Library. Print.

“Atalanta.” //The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction.// Ed. John Sutherland.Harlow: Longman, 1988. Print.

“Atalanta.” //Waterloo Directory of English Newspapers and Periodicals: 1800-1900.// Ed. John S. North. October 23 2012. Online.

Dixon, Diana. “Children and the Press: 1866-1914.” //The Press in English Society from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Centuries.// Ed. Michael Harris and Allan Lee. London: Associated University Presses, 1986. 133-149. Print.

Holloway, Gerry. //Women and Work since 1840.// London: Routledge, 2005. 23 October, 2012. Online.

Mitchell, Sally. “Careers for Girls: Writing Trash.” //Victorian Periodicals Review.// Volume 25, No. 3 (Fall 1992) 109-113. October 23, 2012. Online.

--- . “L.T. Meade.” //Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.// Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004-2012. October 23, 2012. Online.

Onslow, Barbara. //Women of the Press in Nineteenth Century Britain.// New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. Print