Wnat's in an aim

It's looking more and more likely that the major distinguishing feature of The Gentleman's Magazine is that it was the first to call itself a magazine.

The journals and gazettes that preceded it differ more in what they were called or the size of their audience or whatever other theory a good paper can come up with.

They were prestigious nonetheless with a distinguished role call of authors associated with the periodical.

Journals are free to roam back before their existence through website Sixteenth Century Journal

 Le Journal des Sçavans is generally cited as the first scientific journal (1665)

 The neatest encapsulation is this lesson in literary development where we are reminded not only of Shakespeare and Milton and Aphra Behn but as they put it, perhaps to put us in the moment, 'English arrives in North America 1608'. This was the year of King Lear and a year prior to Avisa Relation oder Zeitung




Earlier eighteenth century periodicals (but not magazines) were The Spectator (1711-14) and Vetusta Monumenta, illustrated antiquarian papers at intermittent levels (1718-1906)

while The London Magazine (1732-1785), The Bee (1733-1735), Lloyds List (1734 and still going strong) and The Scots Magazine (1739-1826) all followed hot on its heels.