''Sunday at Home'' was a weekly magazine published in London by the
Religious Tract Society
The Religious Tract Society was a British evangelical Christian organization founded in 1799 and known for publishing a variety of popular religious and quasi-religious texts in the 19th century. The society engaged in charity as well as commerci ...
beginning in 1854. It was one of the most successful examples of the "
Sunday reading" genre of periodicals: inexpensive magazines intended to provide wholesome religious (or religiously-inspired) entertainment for families to read on Sundays, especially as a substitute for "pernicious" secular penny weeklies such as ''
The London Journal
''The London Journal; and Weekly Record of Literature, Science and Art'' (published from 1845 to 1928) was a British penny dreadful, penny fiction weekly, one of the best-selling magazines of the nineteenth century.
It was established by George ...
'' or ''
The Family Herald''.
It was initially edited by
James Macaulay, and later by W. Stevens.
Macaulay and Stevens also edited ''
The Leisure Hour
''The Leisure Hour'' was a British general-interest periodical of the Victorian era which ran weekly from 1852 to 1905. It was the most successful of several popular magazines published by the Religious Tract Society, which produced Christian lite ...
'', a similar periodical which debuted two years earlier and was also published by the Religious Tract Society, though ''Sunday at Home'' was more overtly religious and had a more strongly
Sabbatarian
Sabbatarianism advocates the observation of the Sabbath in Christianity, in keeping with the Ten Commandments.
The observance of Sunday as a day of worship and rest is a form of first-day Sabbatarianism, a view which was historically heralded ...
viewpoint.
Like ''The Leisure Hour'', a typical issue of ''Sunday at Home'' led with a serialized piece of religious fiction, and included at least one large illustration.
In addition to the penny weekly format, the magazine was issued in monthly parts at a price of five pence
(raised to 6p in 1863), and annual volumes ranging in price from around 5 to 10 shillings.
![Sunday at Home John 11-25](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Sunday_at_Home_John_11-25.jpg)
In 1862, the magazine began including colour illustrations, apparently the first penny weekly to do so.
In 1865, the magazine had an annual circulation of 130,000 copies, which increased steadily up to 1875.
Citations
External links
{{Commons cat, The Sunday at Home
Links to archives of full issues of ''Sunday at Home''via the
Online Books Page
The Online Books Page is an index of e-text books available on the Internet. It is edited by John Mark Ockerbloom and is hosted by the library of the University of Pennsylvania. The Online Books Page lists over 2 million books and has several feat ...
Religious magazines
Defunct magazines published in the United Kingdom
Magazines established in 1854
1854 establishments in the United Kingdom