The New Monthly Magazine was a British monthly magazine published from 1814 to 1884. It was founded by Henry Colburn and published by him through to 1845.
Charles Knight's London Magazine merged with the New Monthly in 1829, and in that year Richard Bentley became Colburn's business partner. After Redding resigned in 1830, Campbell found himself unable to edit the magazine on his own and Samuel Carter Hall became editor for a year. In 1831 the novelist Edward Bulwer became editor, turning "the essentially apolitical, slightly Whiggish, literary journal into a vigorous radical organ shouting 'Reform' at the top of its lungs."[6] Hall, a political Conservative, had remained as sub-editor, and resisted Bulwer's efforts: Bulwer resigned in 1833, with Hall taking up the editorship once more. Contributors now included Catherine Gore, Anna Maria Hall, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Felicia Hemans, Caroline Norton, Thomas Haynes Bayly, and Theodore Edward Hook.
In 1845 Colburn sold the magazine for £2500 to William Harrison Ainsworth, who had earlier edited Bentley's Miscellany and who now edited his own Ainsworth's Magazine. Ainsworth edited the New Monthly with his cousin William Francis Ainsworth as sub-editor.[7] From 1871–79 William Francis Ainsworth was editor.
The editorship of the New Monthly Magazine was complicated by the frequent use of a deputy position, or "working editor". Hook, Hood, Ainsworth, and Ainsworth alone are named on bound volume title pages.[7]
William Harrison Ainsworth (v. 73-147; 1845–70), at least
Prior to 1837, when the full title [...] and Humourist was also introduced, the volume title pages name no editor (relying on spot check of selected volumes). After 1870 the linked HathiTrust catalogue record covers few volumes. Those for 1873 name "William Francis Ainsworth, Ph.D., F.S.A., F.R.G.S., &c." (vols. III-IV, new series).
^'Introduction', Wellesley Index to Periodical Literature. According to the ODNB, the transcendentalist Francis Barham (1808–1871) edited the paper at around this time: "Two hundred pounds invested in the New Monthly Magazine procured him the joint editorship with John Abraham Heraud, the poet and dramatist. Anne Taylor, "Barham, Francis Foster (Alist Francis Barham) (1808–1871)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 4 January 2008. Heraud's ODNB entry has him editing the Monthly Magazine from 1839 to 1842, but does not mention the New Monthly.
^List of periodical titles, retrieved 10 June 2010 (Scroll down to see title listings for The New Monthly, listed below The New London Magazine and above The New Quarterly Magazine
Many earlier editions of this publication are now available online. Later volume numbering is sequential by year. In earlier publications, at least one example is to be found of multiple volume numbering in the same year, such as 1822, per examples listed below. The list also illustrates the titles used, and gives an indication of the publishing frequency.
David Higgins, 'Englishness, Effeminacy, and the New Monthly Magazine: Hazlitt’s “The Fight” in Context’, Romanticism 10:2 (Autumn 2004), 170–90
The New Monthly Magazine. Vol 145. 1869 at Google Books. The last volume for which full views are available, thereafter only snippet views are available per below.