Cirrus@Austlit

In December 1903, Arthur Hoey Davis published the first issue of Steele Rudd's Magazine, beginning a long period as proprietor of several series of Steele Rudd magazines. Davis was widely known as Steele Rudd, the author of On Our Selection (1899) and Our New Selection (1903). Many of the stories contained in these volumes had been published previously in the Bulletin, providing Davis with a wide readership.

Offered to readers 'in the interests of Australian Literature and Art', the magazine promised 'to fill its pages with nothing but first-class work both as regards writing and drawing.' In addition to many stories by Steele Rudd, writers such as Joseph Furphy, Mary Gilmore, George Essex Evans and Victor Daley contributed stories and poetry. Ashton Murphy was announced as the primary cartoonist in the first issue, but Davis attracted contributions from many other visual artists including Norman, Lionel and Ruby Lindsay, George Taylor, Ruth Simpson and Arthur Hingston. Not entirely made up of literary content, the magazine also published articles on sport, fashion and the theatre.

The magazine had a significant rural bias, signalled immediately by its many advertisements for farm and domestic equipment. Published in Brisbane for Steele Rudd & Co., the magazine attracted many local advertisers and a number from Toowoomba near where many of Rudd's stories are set. In later issues, characters from Rudd's stories appeared in advertisements for farm equipment.

Like the Bulletin, Steele Rudd's Magazine encouraged contributions from readers, printing many in the 'Out-back Realities' section. Steele Rudd also wrote a 'Correspondence Column', responding to contributions with witty advice and caustic rejections in the manner of the Bulletin.

Davis was one of the few writers in the early 1900s who made a significant income from his writing. But overspending and poor business investments brought financial trouble. In 1905 Davis sold Steele Rudd's Magazine to J. F. Millington who then acted as editor. But by January 1906, Davis had bought back his interest in the magazine, apologizing in the January issue for the editorial policies of the previous eight months.

Steele Rudd's Magazine survived for another eighteen months. In February 1907 Davis moved to Sydney, conducting his editorial duties from there. But, despite the financial stability of the magazine, Davis was not satisfied with the salary he was drawing for the time and energy he provided. His solution was to cease publication. The last issue of Steele Rudd's Magazine appeared mid-year and Davis had returned to Brisbane by November. This was not, however, the end of Davis's career as a magazine proprietor. He revived the magazine several times during the next twenty years under variant titles, but consistently encountered financial difficulty.

From 1903-1907 and 1917-1922, Arthur Hoey Davis (Steele Rudd) was proprietor of a monthly and, later, an annual magazine. In 1923 he returned to the monthly format, replacing Steele Rudd's Annual with the first issue of Steele Rudd's Monthly in April of that year.

The editorial for this first issue proclaimed, 'It is essentially a Queensland publication, conducted, printed, and published by Queenslanders, and enriched by the brains and enthusiasm of leading writers and artists, representing every State in the Commonwealth.' The new magazine retained the format of the previous annual and used many of the writers and artists familiar to readers from the previous series. Regular contributors included Mabel Forrest, Edward Dyson, H. E. Riemann and Margaret Leicester. The rural bias was maintained in articles, prose and poetry, and the promotion of Queensland as a place of settlement also appeared in advertisements and feature articles. Davis continued to encourage contributions from readers with one-page advertisements entitled 'Develop Your Brain'. He responded to hopeful contributors in his correspondence column.

Davis appointed his close friend, Winifred Hamilton, as sub-editor. Both contributed stories, articles and reviews to the magazine. Hamilton, writing under her own name and the pseudonym 'Callisto', contributed articles attacking the sexism of the time. The polemic tone of some of these articles was lightened by editorial interjections from Davis and comic portrayals of his threatened partriarchy in the 'Editorial Smoke Room'. Nevertheless, Hamilton's contributions gave the new monthly magazine a different character than previous manifestations of Steele Rudd's.

Despite the title, Steele Rudd's Monthly did not always appear on a monthly basis and some issues dispensed with the last word. By early 1925 the magazine was in financial trouble and Davis responded by closing the business and moving to Sydney. The last issue of Steele Rudd's Monthly appeared in February 1925, but Davis briefly revived the magazine in Sydney with the support of the Australian Worker's Union, giving it the new title, Steele Rudd and Shop Assistants' Magazine.

Steele Rudd and Shop Assistants' Magazine was Arthur Hoey Davis' fourth stint as proprietor of a magazine that displayed his pseudonym in the title. Moving to Sydney a year after the closure of Steele Rudd's Monthly in February 1925, Davis secured the support of the Australian Workers' Union for his new magazine. But the socialist connections and related content in the magazine deterred many booksellers from ordering the magazine. In addition to the socialist focus, Davis and his companion Winifred Hamilton also contributed articles and stories. Hamilton wrote under the pen-name 'Callisto' and Davis published a serialisation of The Romance of Runnibede, using the magazine to advertise the upcoming film version of the novel.

Like Davis' other forays into magazine publication, Steele Rudd and Shop Assistants' Magazine ran into financial difficulty. Although the magazine was a less expensive production than previous manifestations, it failed to assert its place in the magazine market. The magazine folded during 1927 and the Australian Workers's Union later sued for unpaid printing bills.

When the first issue of the new series of Steele Rudd's Magazine appeared in July 1929, it represented the fifth attempt by Arthur Hoey Davis to sustain a magazine in the Australian market. Previous series had achieved some success, reaching a wide readership, but most had ended in financial difficulty. This series, produced in Sydney, was Davis' last term as proprietor of a magazine.

Like previous series, the first issue declared the interests of the magazine in an editorial:

'Steele Rudd's' will be conducted strictly along the lines of ability, national service, morality and commonsense. It will not be a purveyor of social personalia of the self-seeker, photographic and feminine idiosyncracies, movie-star painted absurdities and claptrap. Pictures or personal paragraphs in its pages will be printed only of people who have distinguished themselves by achieving something worth while in one form or another, excepting, of course, in cases of entertaining and useful satire.'

Without advertisements for farm equipment, the new Steele Rudd's Magazine did not immeditely exhibit the rural focus of its predecessors. The prose and poetry, except for several prominent examples from Steele Rudd and Henry Mostyn, also exhibited less of a rural bias. Contributions included a portrait of Ireland, an article on socialism by former Prime Minister Billy Hughes, a discussion of women's rights by Winifred Hamilton, and articles on the timber industry and immigration.

Only several issues of Steele Rudd's Magazine were produced, the venture apparently suffering financial difficulty as the Depression began to take hold. Nevertheless, it remains a significant part of the series of magazines published under the name of Steele Rudd between 1903 and 1930.