British Masculinity in the 'Gentleman's Magazine', 1731 to 1815 (Genders and Sexualities in History) - Hardcover

“Gillian Williamson’s fascinating book offers a sustained and detailed study of the Magazine’s readership and its changing ideas of the gentleman, from its foundation by Edward Cave in 1731 to the aftermath of Waterloo in 1815. ... the Gentleman’s Magazine had been an aspirational publication for the ‘middling sort’, in which readers from the mercantile and professional classes fashioned the figure of the gentleman in their own image.” (Caroline Gonda, The BARS Review, Issue 49, 2017)

The Gentleman's Magazine was the leading eighteenth-century periodical. By integrating the magazine's history, readers and contents this study shows how 'gentlemanliness' was reshaped to accommodate their social and political ambitions.