About

The Girl's Own Paper began life as a weekly magazine published by the Religious Tracts Society (later Lutterworth Press), aimed at the respectable-young-lady demographic. The weekly editions were about sixteen pages long (three columns of small print, with plenty of illustrations), and were annually collected into bound volumes called, sensibly enough, The Girl's Own Annual. These bound volumes contain a list of contributors and illustrators at the front, but authors are not always given credit on individual articles and stories.

Highlights From the Girl's Own Paper is a blog of article transcripts and illustration scans from The Girl's Own Paper, covering the first twenty-odd years of its run (i.e. from its start in 1880 to the early 1900s, or the Victorian and Edwardian eras of the paper). The editor-in-chief of The Girl's Own Paper during this time was Charles Peters. Over 60 writers and 20 illustrators contributed to the paper over the course of any given year.

During this time the G.O.P. featured:

• serial stories - usually "school days" stories, family dramas and romances with the uplifting moral messages laid on thick
• recipes
• dress patterns
• sheet music
• competitions
• trivia
• essays on a wide variety of subjects relevant to its readers' interests including but not limited to  etiquette, travel, health, science, history, art, employment, education, cookery and home-making
• a monthly fashion column, painstakingly detailed and lovingly illustrated - want to know exactly what the cool girls were wearing in London in the spring of 1885, or what colours and fabrics were trending in the winter of 1892? You've come to the right place!

And, my personal favourite, the Answers to Correspondents section at the end of every paper in which a lucky few readers would have their burning questions answered by the editorial team at the G.O.P. Answers are generally divided into categories such as Miscellaneous, Education, Cookery, Housekeeping, Medical, etc. For space-saving purposes, only the answer was published, alongside the asker's chosen nom-de-plume. The questions themselves, alas, were only rarely printed.

Articles are tagged by year and subject matter, and Answers to Correspondents by category. The best of the best is tagged "platinum gop".

I have created indexes for articles coming under various general subject headings. I will keep this updated as I post, so most things of especial interest should be listed there, hopefully.

As of February 2016, I will be posting two to three times a week, and going back to the first bound volume, dated 1880. So henceforth the majority of transcripts will be in chronological order, with the occasional random jump backwards or forwards in time. But there is a LOT of material to get through here, so if there's something specific you would like to read but is several years away according to the chronological plan, again, let me know. :) 

All material herein is (c) Lutterworth Press. All transcripts are by the web author.