''Good Words'' was a 19th-century monthly periodical established in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

in 1860 by the Scottish publisher

Alexander Strahan Alexander Strahan (1833–1918) was a 19th-century publisher. His company, Alexander Strahan & Co., based at Ludgate Hill in London, published what was arguably one of the dominant periodicals in the 1860s, a monthly magazine called ''Good Words'' ...

. Its first editor was Norman Macleod. After his death in 1872, it was edited by his brother, Donald Macleod, though there is some evidence that the publishing was taken over at this time by W. Isbister & Co.Collections
Princeton University.

Intended readership and content

''Good Words'' was directed at

evangelicals Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide Interdenominationalism, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "bor ...

and nonconformists, particularly of the lower middle classes. It included overtly religious material, but also fiction and non-fiction articles on general subjects, including science. The standard for content was that the devout should be able to read it on Sundays without sin. It became known as a "fireside read", which could be shared and enjoyed by adults, servants and masters. ''Good Words'' was known for illustrations by such artists as

John Everett Millais Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, ( , ; 8 June 1829 – 13 August 1896) was an English painter and illustrator who was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was a child prodigy who, aged eleven, became the youngest ...

and

Arthur Boyd Houghton Arthur Boyd Houghton (13 March 1836 – 25 November 1875) was a British painter (oil and watercolours) and illustrator. Houghton was born in Kotagiri, Madras, India. His work was varied and was highly regarded during the mid-19th century. ...

, engraved by the Brothers Dalziel.

Circulation

In 1863, Norman Macleod wrote that the magazine had a circulation of 70,000. In the following year, it advertised a monthly circulation of 160,000, but the number is probably exaggerated. In 1906, ''Good Words'' was amalgamated with the weekly ''Sunday Magazine'', and published in that format until 1910.

References

''The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature'', ed. by George Watson. Cambridge University Press, 1969. Vol. 3, column 1849. Eyre-Todd, George
"Donald Macleod"
in

'. Retrieved 1 June 2011. Gray, Donald
Untitled review
of Patricia Thomas Srebrnik's ''Alexander Strahan: Victorian Publisher''. ''Victorian Studies'', vol. 31, no. 1 (Autumn 1987), pp. 141–144. Available for download via JSTOR. Retrieved 1 June 2011 James Pope-Hennessy (1978). ''Anthony Trollope'' (Phoenix Press paperback ed., 2001) pp. 261–263. Judith Wittosch Malcolm. "Good Words", ''The Oxford Reader's Companion to Trollope'' (R. C. Terry, ed., Oxford University Press, 1999) pp. 219–221. R. H. Super (1990). ''The Chronicler of Barsetshire: A Life of Anthony Trollope'' (University of Michigan Press) pp. 150–155. Sutherland, John
Untitled review
of Patricia Thomas Srebrnik's ''Alexander Strahan: Victorian Publisher''. ''Nineteenth-Century Literature'', vol. 42, no. 1 (June 1987), pp. 120–126. Available for download via JSTOR. Retrieved 1 June 2011. Simon Cooke, PhD

"Good Words", ''The Victorian Web''. Retrieved 27 March 2020.

External links

{{Commons category inline, Good Words
Good Words archive at HathiTrust
1860 establishments in the United Kingdom 1910 disestablishments in the United Kingdom Monthly magazines published in the United Kingdom Religious magazines published in the United Kingdom Christian magazines Defunct literary magazines published in the United Kingdom Defunct magazines published in the United Kingdom Evangelicalism in the United Kingdom Magazines established in 1860 Magazines disestablished in 1910 Nonconformism