Information: Anna Kingsford start editing this journal in October, 5, 1872, and she kept it for a short period, probably a little more than a year, although Edward Maitland states that: “after a two years’ trial and a loss of several hundred pounds, the incompatibility of the standard of journalistic morality which she proposed to herself with commercial success became too obvious to be disregarded, and the enterprise was abandoned” (see the below quotations).

            “Her husband’s first curacy was that of Atcham, near Shrewsbury, of which parish he subsequently, after sundry migrations, became vicar; a picturesque and pleasant, but – as it proved for her – an insalubrious spot, lying low on the banks of the Severn, and liable to floods. Finding continuous residence there impracticable, and being impelled irresistibly to activities for which a country life afforded no scope, and resolute in her struggle against her physical disabilities, she undertook the risks and conduct of a London weekly magazine then seeking a purchaser, and accordingly became proprietor of The Lady’s Own Paper; a Journal of Progress, Taste, and Art, editing it herself, and dividing her time between London and her home. By this agency she sought to give expression to the ideas which crowded on her in regard to social reform, especially in matters directly affecting her own sex; not, however, restricting the term to its personal aspect. For, while aiming immediately at the enlargement of the sphere assigned to women, she aimed rather at the promotion to what she conceived to be its due place in the control of society, of the principles of which woman is the especial representative, than at the promotion of women themselves.

(…)

            Neither in the acquisition nor in the conduct of her magazine was she influenced by commercial ends. Her principles were everything, and her adherence to them proved fatal to the enterprise. It was not that those essentials of journalistic success, advertisements, were wanting. On the contrary, the supply was ample for such purpose. But, as proprietor, she insisted on editing her advertising as well as her literary columns, and rigidly excluded notices of any wares which failed to meet her approval. Preparations of meats, unhygienic articles of apparel, deleterious cosmetics – in fact, whatever involved death in the procuring or ministered to death in the using was banned and barred, regardless of monetary results. Her manager, alarmed at the prospect which he too surely foresaw, remonstrated earnestly but vainly. She was inflexible. And so it came that, after a two years’ trial and a loss of several hundred pounds, the incompatibility of the standard of journalistic morality which she proposed to herself with commercial success became too obvious to be disregarded, and the enterprise was abandoned. The experience gained, however, was regarded by her as more than compensating the outlay. It was another step in her education for whatever was before her. And her magazine had served at least one notable end, for in its columns had been sounded the first note of the crusade which has since been waged against the atrocities of the physiological laboratory. It was in the exercise of her functions as editor of The Lady’s Own Paper that she became aware of the existence of vivisection.” (pp. 16-20)

[Anna Kingsford – Her Life, Letters, Diary and Work. Edward Maitland. Two volumes. 3^rd Edition, edited by Samuel Hopgood Hart. John M. Watkins, London, 1913. Vol. I, 442 pp.]