Fraser's Magazine, a distinguished 19th-century literary and general journal published in London from 1830 to 1882, originally adhered to Tory politics before shifting to a Liberal stance. Established by Hugh Fraser and William Maginn, it included contributions from notable figures such as Thomas Carlyle, Thackeray, and John Stuart Mill, merging political debate with literary creativity.
Editors like James Anthony Froude influenced its direction, while its pages served as a melting pot for varied perspectives. As Sidney Lee observed, the magazine’s “brilliance” solidified its renown, while Hugh Walker commended its early gathering of talent. Although it was later rebranded as Longman’s Magazine in 1882, its influence continues as a crucial venue for 19th-century intellectual and literary dialogue.
Sidney Lee, Dictionary of National Biography… (1893)
“ The brilliance of the papers helped, however, to establish ‘Fraser's Magazine’ on a firm basis, and secured for their author a wide reputation. He regularly attended the meetings, at taverns or clubs, of the ‘Fraserians,’ the contributors to the magazine, and he came to know the most distinguished men of letters of the day. ”
Hugh Walker, The Age of Tennyson
“ One result is that there will probably never again be [Pg 6] concentrated on a single paper as much talent and genius as we find in the early numbers of Fraser’s Magazine. Another is that in ever growing ratio the literary talent of the age finds its outlet in the periodical. If Horace was right in his celebrated maxim, the change is not one to rejoice over.The increase of the magazines has influenced all literature, but especially fiction. It has greatly stimulated the demand, and it has changed the manner of publication. ”
Frances Power Cobbe,
Life of Frances Power Cobbe, as told by herself
“ When my active work at Bristol came to an end and I became for four years a cripple, I naturally turned to use my pen, and, finding from my happy experience of Workhouse Sketches in Macmillan’s Magazine that I could make money without much difficulty, I soon obtained almost as many openings as I could profit by to add to my income. I wrote a series of articles for Fraser’s Magazine, then edited by Mr. Froude, who had been my brother’s friend at Oxford, and who from that time I had the high privilege to count as mine also. These first papers were sketches of Rome, Cairo, Athens, Jerusalem, etc. ”
