The Australian Journal was one of the more successful magazines to be established in Australia during the nineteenth century. Published in Melbourne by Clarson, Massina and Company, its success lay it seems in its lack of pretension and value for money. Initially commenced as a weekly, priced 3d, its model was not the higher class London monthlies, but the popular Family Herald. So it attempted to appeal to all members of the family, though its forte was fiction, both local as well as imported. Readers were told in the first issue, for 2 September 1865:
The ablest COLONIAL pens of the day will be engaged on our staff. Historical Romances and Legendary Narratives of the old country, will be mingled with Tales of Venture and Daring in the new; Nouvellettes, whose scenes will be laid in every nation, varied occasionally with Fairy Stories for the Young, and Parlour Pastimes for boys and girls.
In keeping with these aims, the first issue featured two serials by local writers, Mrs Arthur Davitt's 'Force and Fraud; A Tale of the Bush' and James Skipp Borlase's 'Galfried of Arlington; A Historical Nouvellette'. After four years as a weekly, increased postage costs led to the Australian Journal becoming a monthly in 1869, now offering 64 pages of closely printed material for 6d. It differed from many other local magazines in that most of its contributions were signed, though often by pen-names, and in having contributors and readers in nearly all the colonies. According to G. B. Barton in his Literature in New South Wales (1866), the Australian Journal was then circulating an average of 5,500 copies weekly, including 1,750 in New South Wales. This was at least equal to the circulation of English magazines of a similar style and cost, indicating that Australian readers were prepared to support local magazines if their contents and prices were competitive with the imported products.
The Australian Journal's policy of printing original fiction with both local and overseas settings continued until 1871 when, under Marcus Clarke's period as editor, this notice announcing a more nationalistic emphasis appeared in the July number:
The Conductor wishes intending contributors to understand that the AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL will publish no 'original' story, the scene of which is laid elsewhere than in the Colonies, or which does not - in some way - treat of Colonial life, or subjects of Colonial interest. Tales of the West of England, the North of Scotland, India, Baden-Baden, Venice, Kamschatcha, and other places favoured by novelists, can be culled from the English magazines and French Feuilletons, in much better condition than as manufactured here. The Conductor is willing to protect native industry in the matter of tale-writing, but the tales must be 'Colonial', and suited for 'Colonial wear', not bad imitations of the French and English imported article.
This change of policy may be one of the reasons why one of the most prolific and long-standing of the Australian Journal's writers, Mary Helena Fortune, concentrated in the later decades on the long detective stories published in each issue under the heading of 'The Detective's Album' and signed 'W. W.'. Earlier, she had contributed a range of material under the longer, and more feminine, pseudonym 'Waif Wander', including some of the peripatetic journalism usually the preserve of male writers like Clarke.
As a typical issue of the Australian Journal, one may take that for September 1870. There were the usual two serials, given one illustration each: an episode from Clarke's His Natural Life and another from The Trapper's Last Trail by Leon Lewis. While Clarke, in the passage quoted above, did not refer to stories set in America, they were a regular feature of the journal. This issue also carried three full-page illustrations, showing a characteristic nineteenth-century blending of the natural and the man-made: 'Waterfall on the Coliban'; 'Australian Railways - Viaduct near Goulburn'; 'Fitzroy Iron Works: Scene on the Tramway between the Works and the Coal Mine'. As well as 'W.W.''s 'The Evidence of the Grave', one of 'Waif Wander's' comic Irish tales, 'Biddy Twohy's Adventures in Australia - Her Caper Sauce', and several other stories by local and overseas authors were included. There were also several poems, including a long one by Henry Kendall, and a number of scientific and other non-fictional pieces.
Regular features included 'The Doctor'; 'The Cook'; 'News of the Month'; 'Gardening for September'; 'Answers to Correspondents'; a page of puzzles of various types; 'Facetiae and Scraps'; and 'Register of Births, Marriages, and Deaths in Victoria, during Aug., 1870'. There were seven pages of advertisements, though at least two of those related to the Australian Journal and other publications by its proprietors. Although its price had now increased to one shilling for single issues or ten for a year's subscription, readers were still getting great value for money and increased competition saw the price reduced again to 6d per issue from 1874. The journal managed to survive until after the Second World War, but was increasingly unable to compete with new forms of popular entertainment and ceased publication a few years after the introduction of television to Australia in 1956. (Elizabeth Webby, July 2004)
