Overview

Members of this literary society were part of the congregation of Bridge Street United Presbyterian Church, located in Musselburgh, East Lothian, to the east of Edinburgh. (For a brief history of the church, see the National Records of Scotland catalogue entry.)

There are three extant volumes of the manuscript magazine that this society produced. The ‘Index’ at the start of the 1890-1891 volume lists the contributions by the date of the meeting at which they were read aloud. This tells us that the society held regular ‘Magazine Nights’ during their yearly sessions. Thus, almost all of the contributions included in the magazine were intended to be heard first and then read later.

‘Magazine Evenings’ or ‘Magazine Nights’ were meetings that were devoted to the reading of original essays (or occasionally poems) written by group members that were submitted to the Magazine Editor beforehand. The Editor would be responsible for collecting, occasionally selecting, and reading the pieces aloud to the group (more rarely this was done by the contributor him/herself) on the appointed night. This would be followed by ‘criticism’ — or discussion on the piece’s positive and negative points — by the group members.

After the meetings, these contributions were sometimes bound and saved in the society’s library (if they had one) or would be kept by one of the office bearers. In these cases, it was intended that the magazine was to be preserved and that group members would have access to it at a later date. It is of note that literary and mutual improvement groups used the term ‘magazine’ to refer to the oral as well as the material medium.

The 1890-1892 volume is a ‘typical’ issue containing a mixture of prose non-fiction articles and essays, original poems, along with a few letters to the Editor. There is no artwork in any of the issues. Interestingly, readers’ criticisms — the comments written into the magazine by readers on the various aspects of the contributions and/or the magazine itself — are not included in this magazine, but a regular feature entitled ‘Appendix’ (later called ‘Editor’s Remarks’) written by the Editor works in a similar manner. This reports on the society’s magazine nights and provides us with some indication of the reception of each piece that was read aloud. In addition, it discusses the ‘Appendix of Criticism’ that was also read aloud at the meetings, which did include comments about the previous issue of the magazine.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Bridge Street United Presbyterian Literary Society (Edinburgh)

Date of Existence

1890?-1901?

Date of Magazine

Vol. II, 1890-1891; Vol. IV, 1892-1893; 1899-1901

Number of Issues

3

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Articles (non-fiction); Editorials; Essays; Indexes; Letters to Editor; Poems (original); Reports; Table of Contents; Title page

Repository

National Records of Scotland

Reference

CH3/1495/12;
CH3/1495/13;
CH3/1495/14

Overview

The mutual improvement society that produced this monthly magazine was made up of members of the Salem Methodist Church in Baptist Mills (an area in the northeast of Bristol). The church was founded in 1853 and located on Lower Ashley Road. (For a brief history of this church, see ‘Salem Chapel (Demolished), Baptist Mills, Bristol‘ on the Places of Worship Database website.)

We don’t know when the class was officially started as no other records from the group between 1886 and 1898 appear to have survived (see below). Happily, this lacuna can be filled from various articles in its magazine. In the mid-1880s, the President of the class was the then current minister, Reverend S. Heywood, and the group had two secretaries and an Executive Committee. The subscription charge was 2s per year. It was a mixed-gender class that met weekly, and like other groups of this type, its yearly sessions (October until March or April) included a range of activities, including the reading of original essays by society members followed by ‘criticisms’, hearing papers read by invited speakers, debates, extempore speaking, and social evenings and outings. The attendance records given in the October 1886 issue suggest that there may have been around 60 to 70 members (at least). The class also had its own library.

There are 19 extant issues of this magazine which are bound into three hardcover volumes (Vol. 2 having 7 issues, and Vols. 4 and 6 both having 6). The magazine was initially read aloud at society meetings and later bound, which was not unusual. According to the ‘Editorial’ in the October 1886 issue, the ‘choice of subjects [was] left entirely to the judgement and good taste of the writers’, and contributions on politics were even allowed, as long as the writer refrained from party politics (P.H. Taylor, ‘Editorial Notes’, Salem Chapel Mutual Improvement Society Monthly Magazine, ed. by P.H. Taylor, Vol. 2, No. 6, October 1886, p. 3). Authors were given the option of signing their own names or using a pen-name. Some of the readers wrote to the Editor to share their comments, which were then included in the next month’s issue.

Included in the magazine are regular features like: the ‘Review’, which gives an summary of the group’s recent activities; ‘Notices’, which advertises upcoming talks and events; the ‘Letters to the Editor’; and a correspondence column entitled, ‘Questions’, which is directed more towards the readers of the magazine rather than the Editor per se. It is only in Volume 6 that original artwork begins to be used as ornamentation or to illustrate the articles in which they appear.

There are a few records that have survived for the class dating from a bit later than the magazines: inserted into the front of Volume 6 are 16 pages selected from some of the minutes from the class’s minute books for the years 1896 to 1898, including Executive meetings and lists of members (1896-97, total of 52, and for 1897-98, total of 43).

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Salem Chapel Mutual Improvement Society

Date of Existence

1886?-1898?

Date of Magazine

Nos. 6-12, October 1886-April 1887; Nos. 19-24, October 1888-March 1889; Nos. 31-36, October 1890-March 1891

Number of Issues

19 (extant)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Art/Illustrations (original); Club notices; Correspondence column; Editorials; Essays; Fiction/Narratives; Letters to Editor; Membership lists; Poems (original); Readers’ Criticisms; Reviews (reports on group activities); Serial articles/stories; Sketches; Tables of Contents; Title pages

Repository

Bristol Archives

Reference

35123/S/P/1, 2(a), 2(b)

Overview

This literary group was a bit unusual in that the members formed solely for the purpose of producing a magazine of original works. While they referred to their group as an ‘Association’ and collected subscriptions, it appears that they did not hold any formal meetings. It started as a group of 10 young men (women were allowed later) that were initially asked to join by F. J. Osborn, who would act as the magazine’s Editor.

Osborn, in his ‘Editorial’ in the first number, explains his methods of persuasion to elicit contributions: after convincing one young man to contribute an article, he would then approach another acquaintance and tell him that ‘Fizgog’ has sent in his contribution. He would then go on to say it was such a poor production that surely he (the acquaintance) could produce something better. This ‘harmless subterfuge’ appears not to have been necessary after the launch of the first issue as contributors were more forthcoming thereafter.

According to the magazine’s rules in the first number, each member of the group was to aim for contributing an article every month, but was certainly to do so at least every three months. The magazine was to be kept for four days only (this would later change to 48 hours) and then passed on to the next member on the list or he would have to pay a fine of 1d per day. Friends were allowed to read the magazine, but the listed member was responsible for its condition. Later on, contributions were accepted from non-members. In the first issues, the Editor re-wrote each of the pieces submitted, and the authors’ artwork was cut and pasted in.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

(Currently unknown) (Hertford)

Date of Existence

1904?-1911?

Date of Magazine

March 1904 – May 1911

Number of Issues

70

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript and Typescript

Contents and Contributions

Advertisements (humorous); Art/Illustrations (original); Articles (non-fiction); Circulation Lists; Editorials; Essays; Fiction/Narratives; Jokes; Letters to Editor; Magazine Rules; Notices; Prefaces; Puzzles; Readers’ Criticisms; Sketches; Tables of Contents; Title pages

Repository

Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies (HALS) (Hertford)

Reference

DE/FJO/A11/1-70

Overview

A summary of the history of the Kelvinside Parish Church Literary Society is available on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds (see ‘Additional Notes’ below).

There is only a single extant issue of this society’s (yearly?) magazine, which is bound with a softcover and imprinted with the title and year on the front. With the exception of the title page, this magazine is entirely in typescript. There are 80 pages with a total of 25 short contributions, being mostly prose essays, a couple of sketches, and only three original poems. If the two articles on Robert Burns that include extracts of his poems is added, the number of pieces with poetry rises to five.

Unlike other periodicals of this type, this society devoted a larger percentage of its magazine to its own activities: over a quarter of the contributions were on the literary society’s meetings and socials. Most of the pieces are anonymous, with authors signing with pen-names, and only one essay’s author using initials.

Included in this issue is a page of jokes and a piece called, ‘Do you Know?’, which lists thirteen trivia questions about the society, some of which are jokes. The five pen-and-ink illustrations were all done by the same artist (E.N. Payne).

At the end of the magazine is the society’s eighth annual report (Session 1903-04) and its financial statement for the same session.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Kelvinside Parish Church Literary Society (Glasgow)

Date of Existence

1895-1926?

Date of Magazine

1903-04

Number of Issues

1

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Type-script, with illustrations

Contents and Contributions

Annual Report; Art/Illustrations (original); Essays; Financial Statement; Jokes; Poems (original); Poems (republished material); Sketches; Title page

Repository

Glasgow City Archives

Reference

CH2/1149/9/2/2

Additional Notes

See also entry for Kelvinside Parish Church Literary Society on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds.

Overview

A summary of the history of the Kent Road United Presbyterian Church Young Men’s Institute is available on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds (see ‘Additional Notes’ below).

The one extant issue of this magazine is a miscellany comprising 162 pages with 11 contributions being mostly prose essays and only two original poems. If we include the article entitled ‘Peasant Poet: Charles Davelin’, that includes extracts of his poems, the number of poetry contributions rises to three. (For a discussion of the work of Chartist poet Davelin (or Davlin), see Michael Sanders, The Poetry of Chartism: Aesthetics, Politics, History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).) Outwith the illustration on the title page (shown in the accompanying photograph, which is a copy of the cover of The Sword and the Trowel, a Christian magazine founded in 1865), there is no artwork in this issue.

There are 35 listed readers in the circulation list at the front of the magazine. However, it was not unusual for these magazines to be passed among family and friends outwith the ‘official’ list of readers.

The Editors’ ‘Notes to Readers’ at the front of the magazine acts as a list of rules for the submission of contributions. Also, it gives the length of time allowed for reading the magazine (two days), and adjures readers to promptly deliver the issue to the next person on the waiting list, a rule that was, apparently, routinely transgressed by several members previously. In addition, the Editors request that contributors and ‘critics’ (i.e. readers who wrote in their comments on the articles and/or the magazine after reading) use a pen-name. Critics were to use the blank pages provided at the back of the magazine for their ‘criticisms’, and these were to be not too lengthy. There are 20 pages of readers’ criticisms at the back of this issue.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Kent Road United Presbyterian Church Young Men’s Institute (Glasgow)

Date of Existence

1 November 1865-?

Date of Magazine

No. 2, Vol. 3 (1 April 1872)

Number of Issues

1 (extant)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Annotation; Circulation List; Correspondence column; Editorial; Essays; Magazine Rules; Poems (original); Preface; Readers’ Criticisms; Serial article/story; Sketch; Table of Contents;  Title page

Repository

Mitchell Library Special Collections

Reference

725431

Additional Notes

See also entry for Kent Road U. P. [United Presbyterian] Church Young Men’s Institute on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds.

Overview

A summary of the history of the New Literary Club is available on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds (see ‘Additional Notes’ below).

The first issue of this magazine was produced in January 1893, four months after the club was founded. According to its Editor, the magazine was ‘instituted in order to allow those who are not public speakers or orators to contribute in writing original pieces of Literature’ (Andrew Ross, ‘Editorial’, New Literary Club Magazine, 18 January 1893, p. 3). At that point, the club had not yet worked out what pieces to include within it, but members generally agreed that these should be on subjects ‘which are common and instructive to all’ (Ibid).

There are 9 issues of this (mostly) monthly magazine bound into four volumes. With the exception of one poem in typescript in the December 1893 issue, all of the pieces are in manuscript.

Most of the issues run about 40 pages each with between 9 and 17 contributions (including the frontispieces). The largest issues were those produced in Summer 1894 and Spring 1895, which average about 130 pages and just over 20 contributions apiece (the largest, the Summer 1894 issue, having 27 contributions).

These issues contain mostly prose works with about ten percent of the contributions overall being poems, all of which are in the authors’ own handwriting, with most choosing to sign their own names. There are also a small number of puzzles and games throughout.

While this club was restricted to men, from the editorials, we know that women contributed a few pieces  (a small percentage overall) of artwork to its magazine. The artwork is in a variety of media, but a sizeable percentage of the illustrations are in pencil, which is a bit unusual.

There is one (extant) issue of the magazine that the club produced under its new name, the Literary Twenty-One Club, which clearly carries on the format and style of the previous issues that were produced by the group as the New Literary Club, with several of its old members staying on (see ‘Additional Notes’ below).

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

The New Literary Club was formed in 1892. In 1896, it became the Literary Twenty-one Club. Even later, it amalgamated with the Holyrood Literary Society and took its name on 24 September 1897. On 3 October 1899, it changed its name to The Holyrood Literary Club, thento  The New Holyrood Literary Club. Later it was simply known as The Holyrood Club. (Glasgow)

Date of Existence

9 September 1892 – 21 April 1896; 21 April 1896 – 24 September 1897 (as Literary Twenty-One Club); on 24 September 1897 it amalgamated with Holyrood Literary Society and took its name

Date of Magazine

January 1893; [February?] 1893; [March?] 1893; October 1893; November 1893; December 1893; January 1894; Summer 1894; Spring 1895

Number of Issues

9 issues in 3 bound volumes

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Annotations; Art/Illustrations (original); Articles (non-fiction); Circulation List; Club notices; Editorials; Epilogue; Essays; Frontispieces; Jokes; Letters to Editor; Maps; Music; Photographs; Poems (original); Poems (republished material); Poem (translation); Prize competition; Puzzles; Readers’ criticisms (unused section); Serial articles/stories; Sketches; Song (original); Table of Contents

Repository

Mitchell Library Special Collections

Reference

(Note: The records for this club are housed together with the records of The Holyrood Club (891047))

Additional Notes

See also entry for New Literary Club on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds.

See also The Literary Twenty-One Club Magazine and The Holyrood Magazine.

Overview

A summary of the history of the Lansdowne Young Men’s Christian Association (aka L.Y.M.C.A.) is available on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds (see ‘Additional Notes’ below).

According to the editorial in the first issue produced in November 1890, the idea to found a magazine was raised at a business meeting of the society held the month before. It was felt that a magazine would provide a ‘lasting benefit’ to the contributors (those young men and women from Landsdowne United Presbyterian Church) as well as its readers. In addition, it was to ‘be a means whereby the spark of social interest in one another’s affairs might be kept aglow & stimulated’ (John G. Miller and James Macfarlane [Editors], ‘To Our Readers’, Our Magazine (Lansdowne Young Men’s Christian Association), Part 1, November 1890, p. 1).

Including an issue solely devoted to its members’ artwork, there are seven issues of this society’s magazine. These are all individually hand stitched (which was not usual for these magazines), and are in kept in five hardcover, A5-sized binders with imprinted covers. The magazine began as a monthly, but by 1891, had become bi-monthly.

Each issue is roughly between 90 and 120 pages with between 20 and 25 contributions, these being a mixture of poetry and prose contributions, along with original artwork in various media as well as photographs. The authors and artists included members and non-members, men and women who mostly left their pieces anonymous, or they signed with pen-names or an initial or initials (presumably with the intention of being identifiable). Only a very small percentage of contributors used their first or full names.

The Art Supplement has 14 contributions that include pen-and-ink drawings, paintings in watercolours and in oil, as well as photographs, including a photo of the group members annotated underneath ‘Our Noble Selves’. Of note in the first issue (November 1890), there are photographs identified as being salt paper prints.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Lansdowne Young Men’s Christian Association (L.Y.M.C.A.)

Date of Existence

1890?-1892?

Date of Magazine

Part 1 (Nov. 1890); Part 2 (Dec. 1890); No. 3, Vol. I (25 Feb. 1891); No. 4, Vol. I (25 Apr. 1891); Part 1, Art Supplement to Our Magazine (Nov. 1891); No. II (Dec. 1891); Vol. II (Apr. 1892)

Number of Issues

7 (includes Art Supplement) (extant)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Art/Illustrations (original); Articles (non-fiction); Correspondence column; Essays; Fiction/Narratives; Letters to Editor; Poems (original); Photographs; Proverbs; Serial articles/stories; Sketches; Tables of Contents (located at the back of each issue); Title pages

Repository

Glasgow City Archives

Reference

TD864/2/1-7

Additional Notes

See also entry for Lansdowne Young Men’s Christian Association (aka L.Y.M.C.A.) on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds.

Overview

A summary of the history of the Glasgow Foundry Boys’ Religious Society, Wellington Palace Branch is available on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds (see ‘Additional Notes’ below).

This magazine is printed in double columns and laid out in newspaper format. It is written in the same hand throughout. It was produced by a large Christian workers’ association and articles have a strong focus on Christian self-improvement, education, temperance and morality for the young (see below). The magazine is anomalous as although it is a society magazine, it was part of a much larger enterprise and is not clearly part of a collective or shared initiative. A cost of one half-penny is listed and the magazine includes paid advertisements, suggesting that it was in part a commercial enterprise.

There were only twelve (lithographed?) issues of this monthly magazine ever produced, and these are bound together in one hardcover volume. The, apparently, enthusiastic members of the Wellington Branch of the Foundry Boys’ Religious Society started the periodical as they felt ‘the want of some proper medium for the expression by the Workers of the numberless suggestions and hints that spring up within them and clamour for utterance’, suggestions which were not being brought properly to attention at the Council meetings held by the larger parent organisation (‘Introductory’, The Foundry Boy, No. 1, January 1886, p. 1).

The magazine was non-sectarian, being aimed more broadly at Christian readers, and it reported on the various aspects of the branch’s work, along with the meetings, activities and events held in local branches across Glasgow, which, presumably, did not have their own magazines. Each issue is eight pages and cost one halfpenny, but by July 1886, this was increased to one penny. Contributions are almost entirely anonymous but a few are signed with the author’s name (usually a minister) or a pen-name.

Copies were available either by post or at the Christian Institute and at various local booksellers. (For more information about the Christian Institute, see ‘Christian Institute‘ on The Glasgow Story website.) In addition, issues could be had at selected booksellers in Paisley, Greenock, Kilmarnock, Rothesay, Coatbridge, Edinburgh and Dundee (‘The Foundry Boy’, ‘To Subscribers’, The Foundry Boy, No. 7, July 1886, p. 3). Presumably, the subscriptions did not cover the costs of production, as advertisements can be found amongst the articles and particularly on the last two pages of each issue.

The final issue of the magazine appeared in December 1886, when the Editor/s announced its discontinuation for reasons that are left ambiguous.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Glasgow Foundry Boys’ Religious Society, Wellington Palace Branch

Date of Existence

1867-1914?

Date of Magazine

Jan. 1886-Dec. 1886

Number of Issues

12

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Print (lithograph?)

Contents and Contributions

Address; Advertisements; Art/Illustrations (original); Articles (non-fiction); Attendance records (totals); Bible lessons; Branch statistics; Correspondence columns; Directories; Editorials; Essays; Hymn; Letters to Editor; Miscellaneous (announcements); News (local branches of society); Poems (original); Reports; Serial articles/stories; Sketches

Repository

Mitchell Library Special Collections

Reference

Mitchell (GC) 206 98783

Additional Information

See also entry for Glasgow Foundry Boys’ Religious Society, Wellington Palace Branch on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds.

Overview

A summary of the history of the Free Anderston Church Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Society is available on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds (see ‘Additional Notes’ below).

This society appears to have had a dynamic group of members that contributed to and supported the production of this magazine for over twenty years. The magazine was issued (mostly) monthly during the yearly session, which ran from October until April; like most societies, there were no meetings held (nor magazines issued) during the summer.

The length of each issue varies a good deal, and is dependent upon the number of pieces and the length of each contribution, which did not appear to have a limit as did some magazines. Each bound volume contains roughly a couple hundred pages (e.g. Vols. II-II, bound into one hardcover book, has 410 pages, while Vol. XIII, one of the slimmest, has approximately 200).

Each contribution is in the author’s own handwriting, but the authors are on the whole not identifiable: pieces are either anonymous, signed with a pen-name, or more rarely with an initial or initials. However, when accompanied by artwork and/or other materials, each contributor’s individuality and creativity shines through, and the care that was taken in the magazine’s production is quite evident. These issues were valued and intended to be preserved.

There is a wide variety of subjects covered in the articles, essays, and poems. There is also a range of means used to illustrate these contributions: each issue (particularly the later ones) includes much good quality, detailed artwork in a range of media (pen-and-ink and watercolour being the most popular, although oil paintings are not uncommon). There are also a number of photographs, swatches of fabric, and cuttings from various printed media, which includes a map that has been folded and bound into one of the volumes. Most issues have an elaborate illustrated cover, as shown in the example of the photograph included here.

It was only in the 1890s in the later issues of the resurrected monthly entitled The Literary Magazine that Readers’ Criticisms’ — the comments that readers wrote into the blank pages of the magazine left for this purpose — were introduced. This section is located at the back of each issue, and readers mostly used pen-names. In a few cases, individual members can be identified by their initials.

The circulation lists for The Literary Bond only list men that are presumably members. The lists from the later 1890s issues show that by this time the society allowed women to join, and, from the ‘Readers’ Criticisms’, we know that they contributed many of the pieces to the magazine.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Free Anderston Church Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Society (later became the Free Anderston Church Literary Society) (Glasgow)

Date of Existence

1849-1897?

Dates of Magazine

The Literary Bond: the Mitchell Library has Vol. 2 (Sept. 1862) – Vol. 13 (Dec. 1875), Vol. 16, No. 1 (Oct. 1876) – Vol. 18 (October 1879), and Vol. 21 (October 1881) – Vol. 22, No. 6 (March 1883) (Vols. 14, 15, 19 and 20 no longer extant?);

The Literary Magazine: the Mitchell Library has Vol. 1, No. 1 (Jan. 1896) – Vol. 2, No. 2 (Feb. 1897)

Number of Issues

The Literary Bond: 15 bound volumes containing a total of 121 issues;

The Literary Magazine: 2 bound volumes. (The total number of issues for this later magazine is currently unknown as Volume 2 was unavailable for viewing at time of research.)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Annotations; Art/Illustrations (original); Articles (non-fiction); Circulation Lists; Cuttings (printed materials); Editorials; Essays; Fiction/Narrative; Letters; Letters to Editor; Magazine Rules; Music; Photographs; Poems (original); Prefaces; Readers’ Criticisms; Reviews; Serial articles/stories; Sketches; Tables of Contents

Repository

Mitchell Library Special Collections

Reference

Mitchell (AL), 891310 (The Literary Bond)

Mitchell (AL), 891311 (The Literary Magazine)

Additional Notes

See also entry for Free Anderston Church Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Society on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds.

Overview

A summary of the history of the New Literary Club (which later became the Literary Twenty-One Club) is available on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds (see ‘Additional Notes’ below).

There is one (extant) issue of this club’s magazine, which clearly carries on the format and style of the previous issues that were produced by the group under its former name, the New Literary Club, with several of its old members staying on. (See entry for New Literary Club Magazine.)

There are 107 pages in this issue. At the front, there is a list of 20 members with their respective addresses. The 15 contributions (see accompanying photo of the ‘Contents’) are mostly prose pieces with only one original poem; an article on Robert Burns, however, transcribes extracts of several of his poems. The artwork in this issue is in various media, the most common being watercolour. There are also several photographs.

Of interest is a recurring feature called a ‘Page of Confessions’, which is a list of ‘favourite’ items that must be filled in (e.g. ‘Your favourite Author’; ‘Your favourite Book’, etc., ending with ‘What is the height of your ambition’). There are three examples of these ‘confessions’ in this issue. While one contributor professed to love Charles Lamb and the Bible, another’s reported favourite author was the French Renaissance writer and philosopher, Michael Sieur de Montaigne (1533-1592) and favourite book was The Compleat Angler (1653). One example of the ‘Page of Confessions’ also appears in The Holyrood Magazine, which was produced later.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Literary Twenty-One Club (Glasgow)

Date of Existence

21 Apr. 1896-26 Mar. 1898

Date of Magazine

1896

Number of Issues

1

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Art/Illustrations (original); Articles (non-fiction); Circulation List; Editorial; Essays; Frontispiece; Map; Music; Photographs; Poem (original); Poem (republished material); Readers’ criticisms (pages left blank); Sketch; Table of Contents

Repository

Mitchell Library Special Collections

Reference

(Note: The records for this club are housed together with the records of The Holyrood Club (891047))

Additional Notes

See also entry for New Literary Club (later became Literary Twenty-One Club) on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds.