A new (old) magic magazine: Ye Olde Magic Mag

Magazines, newspapers, journals, newsletters: the sources for recent historical research. When records of current events began to appear in the 17^th century in what we now call “newspapers,” and began to be printed in hundreds, then thousands of copies, maybe nobody realized how important these papers would have been a couple of centuries down the line for all kind of historical research.

The popularity of this new media inspired the creation of journals dedicated to specific subjects, mainly literary or political, and indeed even conjurers put their hands to the new media. The first magical magazine in the English language was The Conjuror’s Magazine, or Magical and Physiognomical Mirror published in England from 1791 to 1793 by one William Locke. The title was slightly deceiving for a magician, as very little conjuring was contained in its pages, the subject having mainly to do with astrology.