An original two page extract from the Supplement to "The Gentleman's Magazine" of 1749 illustrating the "blazon of the Coat armor" for 8 Scottish Lords and 12 Irish Earls

This monthly London magazine was published from 1731 until 1922, a period of almost 200 years - see history below. At this time King George II sat on the throne of England . This annual Supplement would have been printed in January 1750

Good condition - see scans. 

Page size 8 x 5 inches. 

The Gentleman's Magazine

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Front page of The Gentleman's Magazine, May 1759

The Gentleman's Magazine was a monthly magazine[1] founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731.[2] It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1922. It was the first to use the term magazine (from the French magazine, meaning "storehouse") for a periodical.[3] Samuel Johnson's first regular employment as a writer was with The Gentleman's Magazine.

History

The original complete title was The Gentleman's Magazine: or, Trader's monthly intelligencer. Cave's innovation was to create a monthly digest of news and commentary on any topic the educated public might be interested in, from commodity prices to Latin poetry. It carried original content from a stable of regular contributors, as well as extensive quotations and extracts from other periodicals and books. Cave, who edited The Gentleman's Magazineunder the pen name "Sylvanus Urban", was the first to use the term magazine (meaning "storehouse") for a periodical. Contributions to the magazine frequently took the form of letters, addressed to "Mr. Urban". The iconic illustration of St. John's Gate on the front of each issue (occasionally updated over the years) depicted Cave's home, in effect, the magazine's "office".

Before the founding of The Gentleman's Magazine, there were specialised journals, but no such wide-ranging publications (although there had been attempts, such as The Gentleman's Journal, which was edited by Peter Motteux and ran from 1692 to 1694).

Samuel Johnson's first regular employment as a writer was with The Gentleman's Magazine. During a time when parliamentary reporting was banned, Johnson regularly contributed parliamentary reports as "Debates of the Senate of Magna Lilliputia". Though they reflected the positions of the participants, the words of the debates were mostly Johnson's own. The name "Columbia", a poetic name for America coined by Johnson, first appears in a 1738 weekly publication of the debates of the British Parliament in the magazine.[4][5]

The magazine's long-running motto, E pluribus unum, Latin for "Out of many, one", is thought to have inspired the use of the phrase as an unofficial motto of the United States. Motteux's The Gentleman's Journal had previously used the phrase.[6][7][8]

A skilled businessman, Edward Cave developed an extensive distribution system for The Gentleman's Magazine. It was read throughout the English-speaking world and continued to flourish through the 18th century and much of the 19th century under a series of different editors and publishers. It went into decline towards the end of the 19th century and finally ceased general publication in September 1907. However, issues consisting of four pages each were printed in very small editions between late 1907 and 1922 in order to keep the title formally "in print".