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The Queen was an illustrated weekly society magazine founded in 1861 by the English publisher and journalist Samuel Beeton,[a]Samuel’s wife Isabella was the author of Beeton’s Book of Household Management.[1] with an emphasis on the proceedings of high society and the British aristocracy.[2] But the magazine also published some fictional material, including H. G. Wells’s short story
“Miss Winchelsea’s HeartShort story by H. G. Wells first published in 1898, about a snobbish young woman's rejection of a young man's advances because of what she perceives to be his absurd surname, Snooks.“,[3] the theme of which is consistent with the publication’s focus on society and its fashions.
The lawyer and publisher Edward William Cox, known as Serjeant Cox, bought the title in 1862, along with the The Queen‘s rival publication, The Ladies’ Paper, the following year. In 1864 Cox merged the two into The Queen: The Ladies Newspaper and Court Chronicle, and appointed Elizabeth Lowe as its editor.[4]
The title was shortened to Queen in the 1950s, and the content “recalibrated to appeal to a younger readership” under the editorship of Beatrix Miller. Queen was sold to Harper’s Bazaar UK in the 1970s, and the title merged into Harper’s & Queen, before the “Queen” part was dropped for today’s title, Harper’s Bazaar, the well-known fashion magazine.[2]
Caroline
Beatrix Miller had a very clear idea of the type of reader the magazine should be targeting, naming her Caroline. Beatrix produced a style guide issued to every contributor, to give them a vision of their intended audience:[2] “a twenty something, non intellectual who had left school at 16, and was a ‘good time’ girl”.[5]
It is now “generally accepted” that Beatrix’s demographic inspired the name for the offshore Radio Caroline,[5] which in 1964 began broadcasting pop music to the UK from a ship anchored in international waters, targeting the same audience.[6]