The Boy's Own Paper, front page, 11 April 1891
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With the growth of education in the later part Nineteenth Century, (Universal education started in England in 1871) demand was growing for reading material aimed at the juvenille market. While the first known edition of what would later become known as a "story paper" was The Young Gentleman's Magazine, published in 1777 the first story paper to make an impact was The Boys' and Girls' Penny Magazine, first published in September 1832. One of the first publications aimed at boys alone was Every Boy's Magazine in 1863. In 1866, Boys of England was introduced as a new type of publication, an eight page magazine that featured serial stories as well as articles and shorts of interests and was printed on cheap paper.
Numerous competitors quickly followed, with such titles as Boy’s Leisure Hour, Boys Standard, Young Men of Great Britain, etc. As the price and quality of fiction was the same, these storypapers also fell under the general definition of Penny Dreadfuls (also known as Penny Bloods or Blood and Thunders in their early days). Few of these publications lasted more than a couple of years.
Some, however, did last; Boy's Own Paper was published from 1879 to 1965 and Boys' Friend from 1895 to 1927. Another magazine with a comparatively long life was Chums, which started in 1892 and survived until 1934. It had stories about animals and sports as well as many about young people. Chums in its early days worked closely with Baden Powell, but after a disagreement with him became quite derisive about the Scouts. In 1909, however, it became the official Journal for the British Boy Scouts, a break-away group from Baden Powell's Scout movement.
As the youth market established itself as an important part of the publishing industry, demand was perceived to exist for fiction which featured boys themselves in a leading role. This demand was to be met by stories about the public schools, a world where adults could be relegated to the background and where youths could be presented as having a degree of independence not possible elsewhere.
The publisher who took the lead in this period was Trapp Holmes with magazines such as Smiles, Funny Cuts and Vanguard. This last paper was a short lived paper, published from 1907 to 1909 and was a pioneer of the school stories genre.
Amalgamated Press soon entered the market in started to two of most famous boy's papers, The Gem and The Magnet. The main writer for both was Charles Hamilton who was to be an important figure in schools fiction until his death in 1960.
In between the two world wars there appeared in Britain a number of weekly magazines or papers aimed at boys between the ages of 8 and 16. Their price was 2d (two pence) and they were consequently known as the "Tuppenny bloods". They were printed on newsprint, with a coloured front cover. Inside there were short stories, with illustrations and often in a serial form. Some factual article were included. They were published by D C Thomson and known as the "Big Five".
Meanwhile, The Magnet and Gem continued to publish school stories along with newcomers like Nelson Lee and spin-offs such as The Schoolboy's Own Library which reprinted earlier stories. Such papers however, were continually losing circulation D.C. Thompson.
During the same period as the comics like Comic Cuts, The Dandy and The Beano in the strip cartoon form, started to appear.
One boy's magazine that does not conform to the above formats was Modern Wonder. It had a comparatively short life, starting in 1937 and closing down in 1941. It differed from the other magazines by mainly having articles of a technical nature, instead of all fiction. There were some short stories and a serial included, but it was largely well illustrated articles about modern inventions.
Several new Boy's comics were started in the 1950s, Tiger and Eagle being long lasting. The characters in the strip of these two comics were mainly human, unlike those in Beano and Dandy. The Eagle had strips such as Dan Dare and PC 49 drawn without distortion.
By the middle of the 1960s, the taste of the youth of Britain was changing. Television had, for many, displaced reading The improvement of public libraries also hastened the end of some magazines. As a magazine stopped publication it was sometimes combined with one of the remaining. By 1970 most of the publication with text had been replaced by new weeklies of the strip cartoon type. This type of boy's magazine had largely been only available as imports from North America. There had also been a similar introduction of strip novels for adults.
As the 20th century drew to a close, many of these magazines had become collector's items, and from being worthless paper, copies became highly desirable with high prices attached to them.