What kind of newspaper was the New Zealand Graphic and Ladies Journal?
In May 1890 Auckland newspaper proprietor and publisher Henry Brett released a new illustrated magazine with the lengthy moniker New Zealand Graphic, Ladies Journal and Youths Companion [sic]. His new journal would be a ’lifestyle magazine’ targeted at the affluent, leisured ladies (plus discerning husbands and literate children) of New Zealand’s middle and upper classes. Brett’s vision for his new production was that it should be a high-class illustrated weekly competing with imported English illustrated journals like the Gentlewoman , Cassell’s Family Magazine and the Spectator . Consequently, the first issue of the New Zealand Graphic included serialised chapters from New Zealand author J.C. Firth’s recent book Nation Making: a story of New Zealand Savageism and Civilization , together with handsomely illustrated chapters from English novelist Wilkie Collins’s last novel, Blind Love . These stories featured alongside pages of social gossip, poetry, news and pictures of the latest...