magazines that targeted middle-class girls. It was self consciously modern and promoted education, modern pastimes such as photography and physical activity for girls. It encouraged girls to do things beyond the domestic sphere with regular features on girl's schools, sport, and modern hobbies. The magazine established itself as a thoroughly modern publication from its inception. In A Chat with the Girl of the Period in Volume 1 of the magazine Alice Corcoran defined here audience when she wrote to her readers that the modern girl is tired of being taken to see her brother play football, she wants to kick at it herself . . . is tired of living in a doll's house . . . will never take a back seat . . . claims that she has as much right to a good education as her brothers . . . wants to lead a professional life. Class was always an underlying issue. The Bristol Mercury complained of the first issue that it was absurd for one writer to talk of a girl of 17 being given a dress allowance of £100 as this would not be typical of the intended readership. The 1901 competition On the third anniversary of the magazine Corkran launched a competition for which the first prize was a Swift bicycle (worth £22). Readers had to cut out a coupon and send it in with their vote for whichever of fourteen women they considered to be their favourite character. When the magazine got their vote, they sent out a further 25 coupons so the reader could canvas for more votes among other girls that they knew, the object of the competition was to introduce the magazine to as many potential readers as possible. All girls who submitted 25 votes got a small silver charm. The winner of the competition, A. Mary Field, of Highgate, had collected 3,242 votes, through working via a network of headmistresses of girl's schools. The magazine was so pleased with the success of the competition that they added another 19 consolation prizes to the 34 prizes initially advertised, so that every girl who collected over 400 votes would be rewarded. In all, 2,876 girls participated in the competition and between them they submitted over 300,000 votes. The fourteen characters covered a broad range of endeavours. The Girl's Realm Guild One of the innovations of the magazine was the magazine's Guild