1 The ‘wire-puller’: L. T. Meade, Atalanta and the Development of the Short Story

Abstract

The Strand magazine has been credited with creating, 'all by itself, a culture of the short story in Britain where none had theretofore existed'. 1 Launched in 1891, the Strand was indeed noteworthy for focusing its literary content on complete short works of fiction, including Arthur Conan Doyle's tales of Sherlock Holmes, and this editorial decision was unambiguously instrumental in changing the nature of popular literature and how it was consumed. Yet if the Strand was the first magazine to feature the short story as the quintessential form of periodical fiction, there were others that had already recognised and promoted this new genre's potential and malleability. Among the most prominent of those who did so were the editor and author L. T. Meade (Elizabeth Thomasina Meade Toulmin Smith), who four years prior to the advent of the Strand had launched Atalanta, a periodical aimed at a young adult female readership. From its first issue, Atalanta regularly featured short fiction in its pages, and during Meade's tenure as its editor (1887 to 1893) published on average ten stories per volume by existing and emerging (predominantly female) literary talent. Those whose short stories were printed in Meade's magazine included the professional fiction writers E.