'Written in a highly accessible style, this volume should be particularly useful for newcomers to the subject of women's magazines as research objects...[it] offers a fresh and theoretically rigorous appraisal.' - Women: A Cultural Review This book integrates new material from the eighteenth and nineteenth century periodical press, research with contemporary readers, the authors' critical reading of past and present magazines and a clear discussion of theoretical approaches from literary criticism, sociology and cultural theory. The development of the genre, and its part in the historical process of forging modern definitions of gender, class and race are analysed through critical readings and a discussion of readers' negotiations with the contradictory pleasures of the magazine and its constricting ideal of femininity.