Good Words

19th-century monthly periodical established in the United Kingdom

Good Words

Vol 1 title page, 1860.

Editor| Norman Macleod
Frequency| Monthly
Founded| 1860
Final issue| 1910
Language| English

Good Words was a 19th-century monthly periodical established in the United Kingdom in 1860 by the Scottish publisher Alexander Strahan.[1] Its first editor was Norman Macleod. After his death in 1872, it was edited by his brother, Donald Macleod,[2] though there is some evidence that the publishing was taken over at that time by W. Isbister & Co.[3]

## Intended readership and content

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Good Words was directed at evangelicals and nonconformists, particularly of the lower middle classes. It included overtly religious material, but also fiction and non-fiction articles on general subjects, including science.[4] The standard for content was that the devout should be able to read it on Sundays without sin.[5] It became known as a "fireside read", which could be shared and enjoyed by adults, servants and masters.[6]

Good Words was known for illustrations by such artists as John Everett Millais and Arthur Boyd Houghton, engraved by the Brothers Dalziel.[6]

## Circulation

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In 1863, Norman Macleod wrote that the magazine had a circulation of 70,000.[1] In the following year, it advertised a monthly circulation of 160,000, but the number is probably exaggerated.[7][8]

In 1906, Good Words was amalgamated with the weekly Sunday Magazine, and published in that format until 1910.[9]

## References

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1. ^ a b R. H. Super (1990). The Chronicler of Barsetshire: A Life of Anthony Trollope (University of Michigan Press) pp. 150–155.
2. ^ Eyre-Todd, George. "Donald Macleod" in Who's Who in Glasgow in 1909. Retrieved 1 June 2011.
3. ^ "William Isbister Collection, circa 1860-1906". Finding Aids - Princeton University. Retrieved 2023-05-11.
4. ^ Judith Wittosch Malcolm. "Good Words", The Oxford Reader's Companion to Trollope (R. C. Terry, ed., Oxford University Press, 1999) pp. 219–221.
5. ^ James Pope-Hennessy (1978). Anthony Trollope (Phoenix Press paperback ed., 2001) pp. 261–263.
6. ^ a b Simon Cooke, PhD. [1] "Good Words", The Victorian Web. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
7. ^ Sutherland, John (1987). "Review of Alexander Strahan: Victorian Publisher.; The Common Writer: Life in Nineteenth-Century Grub Street.; The Literature of Labour: Two Hundred Years of Working-Class Writing.; The Servant's Hand: English Fiction from Below". Nineteenth-Century Literature. 42 (1): 120–126. doi:10.2307/3044923. ISSN 0891-9356. JSTOR 3044923.
8. ^ Gray, Donald (1987). "Review of The Yearbook of English Studies, Volume 16: Literary Periodicals Special Number; Alexander Strahan: Victorian Publisher". Victorian Studies. 31 (1): 141–144. ISSN 0042-5222. JSTOR 3828090.
9. ^ The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, ed. by George Watson. Cambridge University Press, 1969. Vol. 3, column 1849.

## External links

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Media related to Good Words at Wikimedia Commons

* Good Words archive at HathiTrust