There is no point in me trying to offer a description of the Magnet when Roger Jenkins has already carried out this task to such a high standard. Roger wrote the articles listed below for inclusion in the CD annuals between 1953 and 1959. They were subsequently reprinted in the History of the Magnet and Gem published by the Museum press.
On the left is the cover of the first ever Magnet dated 1908, on the right the last ever issue dated 18th May 1940.
Red
Magnet Magic by Roger Jenkins. The early days of the Magnet from 1908-1915
Those Blue and White Magnets by Roger Jenkins. A wartime shortage of the famous red dye meant from 1916-1921 the Magnet was white paper with a simple blue dye.
Magnets of the Roaring 'Twenties by Roger Jenkins. During the period 1922-1929 Hamilton started spending less time on the Gem and more on the Magnet - and it showed!
The Golden Age of the Magnet by Roger Jenkins. The title sums it up, 1930-1934 is generally believed to be the best period for the Magnet.
The Autumn Years of the Magnet by Roger Jenkins. From 1935-1937 the Magnet was still excellent but not generally regarded as quite to the standard of the Golden years.
The Decline and fall of the Magnet by Roger Jenkins. Roger expressed some regret in a later article about his choice of title of this article. However there is no doubt that the stories of 1938-1940 lacked some of the sparkle of previous years.
Other CD Articles
Wingate in Love. An article from the 'lets be controversial' series by Eric Fayne discussing the 'Wingate in love' series from 1920.
SCANS
The index to the scans can be found here.
The issues that have not been reprinted by Howard baker will not be made available for download. Printed copies are available for sale, contact me for details.
I am currently converting the scans from JPG file format to PDF and many of the files are not yet available on this site. I am hoping to complete this exercise over the next few months, details of the progress can be found here.
The scans are saved in PDF format so can be read online or downloaded to your PC for reading (or printing) offline. If there is no hyperlink on the file name then the file is not yet available. Some of the files are saved in Acrobat 6.0 format so you may have to upgrade earlier versions of Acrobat reader. You can download it for free from here.
Click on the link to open the files. If you want to save copy of the file to your hard drive then right click the link and select the 'save' or 'save as' option.
Some of the Magnet scans are available in both PDF and fully searchable MS Word format. If you do not have Microsoft Word installed on your machine you can download a free version of Microsoft reader from here. Search for "word viewer". Alternatively you can download a free office suite here that can read and create MS Word documents.