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| image_caption = The first issue of ''Tit-Bits'', dated Oct. 22, 1881
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'''''Tit-Bits from all the interesting Books and Newspapers of the World''''', more commonly known as '''''Tit-Bits''''', was a British weekly magazine founded by
==History==
In 1886, the magazine's headquarters moved from [[Manchester]] to [[London]]<ref>{{cite web|author1=Howard Cox|author2=Simon Mowatt|title=Technology, Organisation and Innovation: The Historical Development of the UK Magazine Industry|url=http://aut.researchgateway.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10292/1129/Technology_organisation.pdf?sequence=1&origin=publication_detail|work=Auckland University of Technology|accessdate=25 June 2016|format=Research paper|date=2003}}</ref> where it paved the way for popular journalism – most significantly, the ''[[Daily Mail]]'' was founded by [[Alfred Harmsworth]], a contributor to ''Tit-Bits'', and the ''[[Daily Express]]'' was launched by [[Sir Arthur Pearson, 1st Baronet|Arthur Pearson]], who worked at ''Tit-Bits'' for five years after winning a competition to get a job on the magazine.<ref name = "Hulda">{{Cite book | author=Friederichs, Hulda| title=George Newnes| year=1911 | publisher=Hodder & Stoughton (1911) Kessinger Publishing (2008) | location=London | isbn=978-0-548-88777-6 }} (republished 2008)</ref> Their first offices were at 12 Burleigh Street, off the Strand.
From the outset, the magazine was a mass-circulation commercial publication on cheap newsprint which soon reached sales of between 400,000 and 600,000. By the turn of the century, it became the first periodical in Britain to sell over one million copies per issue.<ref name=Times>{{cite news|newspaper=[[The Times]]|page=32|date=28 June 1984|last=Hamilton|first=Alan|title=Titbits, cradle of popular journalism, closes after 103 years}}</ref> Like a mini-encyclopedia it presented a diverse range of tit-bits of information in an easy-to-read format, with the emphasis on human interest stories concentrating on drama and sensation.<ref>Martin Conboy ''Journalism: A Critical History''</ref> It also featured short stories and full-length fiction, including works by authors such as [[Henry Rider Haggard|Rider Haggard]] and [[Isaac Asimov]], plus three very early stories by [[Christopher Priest (novelist)|Christopher Priest]].
In the decade following its debut, competitors with similar content emerged, including ''Illustrated Bits'', ''Scraps'', and ''Spare Time''.<ref>{{cite journal|title=The Productions of Time: Keble, Rossetti, and Victorian Devotional Reading|last=Lysack|first=Krista|journal=Victorian Studies|volume=55|number=3|year=2013|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/victorianstudies.55.3.451}}</ref>▼
[[Virginia Woolf]] submitted her first article to the paper in 1890, at the age of eight, but it was turned down.<ref>Amy Licence, ''Living in Squares, Loving in Triangles: The Lives and Loves of Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group'' (Amberley Publishing, 2015), p. 20</ref> The
first humorous article by [[P. G. Wodehouse]], "Men Who Missed Their Own Weddings", appeared in ''Tit-Bits'' in November 1900.<ref>From the chronology maintained by the [http://wodehouse.ru/chrono.htm Russian Wodehouse Society]</ref> During the [[First World War]] [[Ivor Novello]] won a ''Titbits'' competition to write a song soldiers could sing at the front: he penned ''[[Keep the Home Fires Burning (1914 song)|Keep the Home Fires Burning]]''.<ref name="MagfTB">{{cite web|title= Tit-Bits/Titbits |url=http://www.magforum.com/mens/mensmagazinesatoz11.htm |work= Magforum |accessdate=30 January 2017}}</ref>
[[Pin-up]]s appeared on the magazine's covers from 1939, and by 1955, circulation peaked at 1,150,000.
==Imitators==
The success of ''Tit-Bits'' inspired a number of other inexpensive weeklies to ape its format, some short-lived and others, such as ''[[Answers (periodical)|Answers]]'' becoming major successes in their own right. Within the first six months of its existence, ''Tit-Bits'' had inspired twelve imitators, growing to 26 within a year of its debut.{{r|Spiers}} Examples of papers said to be imitators include:
* ''The Ha'porth''{{r|Spiers}}
* ''Illustrated Bits''{{r|Lysack}}
* ''Rare-Bits''{{r|Spiers}}
* ''Scraps''{{r|Lysack}}
* ''Sketchy Bits'', published in London by Charles Shurey{{r|Spiers}}
* ''Spare Time''{{r|Lysack}}
* ''Tid-Bits'', published in the United States{{r|Spiers}}
==Cultural influence ==
In ''All Things Considered'' by [[G. K. Chesterton]], the author contrasts ''Tit-Bits'' with the ''Times'', saying: "Let any honest reader... ask himself whether he would really rather be asked in the next two hours to write the front page of ''The Times'', which is full of long leading articles, or the front page of ''Tit-Bits'', which is full of short jokes." Reference to the magazine is also made in [[James Joyce]]'s ''[[Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses]]'',<ref>"In the tabledrawer he found an old number of Titbits." ''[[Ulysses (novel)#Episode 4.2C Calypso|Calypso]]'' episode of ''Ulysses'' by James Joyce.</ref> [[George Orwell]]'s ''[[Animal Farm]]'', [[C. P. Snow]]'s ''[[The Affair (Snow novel)|The Affair]]'',<ref>pg 210 in Volume 2 of the three-volume edition of ''Strangers and Brothers''</ref> [[James Hilton (novelist)|James Hilton]]'s ''[[Lost Horizon]]'', [[Virginia Woolf]]'s ''[[Moments of Being]]'', [[H. G. Wells]]' ''[[The First Men in the Moon]]'' and ''[[Kipps]]'', [[A. J. Cronin]]'s ''[[The Stars Look Down]]'' and [[P. G. Wodehouse]]'s ''[[Not George Washington]]''. It has been also mentioned in [[Stanley Houghton]]'s play ''[[The Dear Departed]]''. Wells also mentioned it in his book ''Experiment in Autobiography''. The magazine is
The magazine name survived as a glossy adult monthly, ''Titbits International''.
==References ==
<ref name="Spiers">{{cite web
▲{{Reflist}}
|last=Spiers|first=John
|title=Picturing the Mass Market, from the 1880s, in Britain
|year=2017
|work=Victorian Popular Fiction Association 9th Annual Conference
|url=https://victorianpopularfiction.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/VPFA-2017-Exhibition-Booklet-Picturing-The-Mass-Market.pdf
}}</ref>
▲
}}
{{commons cat}}
[[Category:1881 establishments in the United Kingdom]]
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