Tit-Bits

{{Short description|Former British weekly magazine}} {{distinguish|Tidbits}} {{Use British English|date=December 2010}} {{Use dmy dates|date=February 2020}} {{Infobox magazine | title = Tit-Bits | logo = | logo_size =  | image_file = Tit-Bits 1881-10-22.jpg | image_size =  | image_alt = | image_caption = The first issue of ''Tit-Bits'', dated 22 October 1881 | editor =  | editor_title =  | previous_editor = | staff_writer = | photographer = | category = | frequency = Weekly | format = | circulation = | publisher = | paid_circulation = | unpaid_circulation = | circulation_year = | total_circulation = | founder = George Newnes | founded = 1881 | firstdate = {{Start date|1881|10|22|df=yes}} | finaldate = {{End date|1984|07|18|df=yes}} | finalnumber = | company = | country = United Kingdom | based = London | language = English | website =  | issn = | oclc = }}

'''''Tit-Bits from all the interesting Books and Newspapers of the World''''', more commonly known as '''''Tit-Bits''''' and later as '''''Titbits''''', was a British weekly magazine founded by George Newnes, a founding figure in popular journalism, on 22 October 1881.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Bridget Griffen-Foley |author-link=Bridget Griffen-Foley |title=From Tit-Bits to Big Brother: a century of audience participation in the media|journal=Media, Culture & Society|date=2004|volume=26|issue=4|url=https://eclass.uoa.gr/modules/document/file.php/MEDIA165/%CE%B8%CE%B5%CF%89%CF%81%CE%AF%CE%B5%CF%82%20%CE%B1%CE%BA%CF%81%CE%BF%CE%B1%CF%84%CE%B7%CF%81%CE%AF%CE%BF%CF%85-audience%20research-%CF%84%CF%83%CE%B1%CE%BB%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%B7/big%20brother.pdf|accessdate=17 March 2016}}</ref>

==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 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> The London offices were at 12 Burleigh Street, off the Strand.{{fact|date=September 2025}}

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> Each issue 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> Later issues featured short stories and full-length fiction, including works by authors such as Rider Haggard and Isaac Asimov, plus three very early stories by Christopher Priest.{{fact|date=September 2025}}

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''.<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-ups appeared on the magazine's covers after the Second World War, and by 1955, circulation peaked at 1,150,000. The name changed from "Tit-Bits" in the issue of 28 December 1967 to "Titbits" in January 1968. In 1979 ''Reveille'' (a weekly tabloid with a virtually identical demographic) was merged into ''Titbits'', and the magazine was rebranded as ''Titbits incorporating Reveille''. This, however, was dropped in 1981. Following a wage dispute at owner IPC Magazines, publication ceased on 9 June 1984 and its closure was announced at the end of June. At the time, ''Titbits'' was selling 200,000 copies per issue.<ref name=Times/> A final issue was published on 18 July 1984<ref name="MagfTB"/> under its last editor Paul Hopkins. It was taken over by Associated Newspapers' ''Weekend''. At the time, the ''Financial Times'' described ''Titbits'' as "the 103-year-old progenitor of Britain's popular press".<ref name="MagfTB"/> ''Weekend'' itself closed in 1989.

The magazine name survived as a glossy adult monthly, ''Titbits International''. ==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'' 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'',<ref>"In the tabledrawer he found an old number of Titbits." ''Calypso'' episode of ''Ulysses'' by James Joyce.</ref> George Orwell's ''Animal Farm'', C. P. Snow's ''The Affair'',<ref>pg 210 in Volume 2 of the three-volume edition of ''Strangers and Brothers''</ref> 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 is also mentioned in Stanley Houghton's play ''The Dear Departed''. Wells also mentioned it in his book ''Experiment in Autobiography''. The magazine is parodied as "Chit Chat" in George Gissing's ''New Grub Street''. In the closing scene of the film ''Kind Hearts and Coronets'' (1949), the protagonist Louis Mazzini (Dennis Price) is approached by a journalist (Arthur Lowe) from ''Tit-Bits''.

The magazine was mistakenly referenced alongside ''Playboy'' and ''The Sun'''s Page 3 in Tom Robinson's 1978 song "Glad to Be Gay". Robinson had misinterpreted the magazine's title and assumed its content to be more salacious.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://gladtobegay.net/versions/trb-demo/|first=SL|last=Taylor|title=TRB Demo|website=Glad to be Gay - Tom Robinson|access-date=12 November 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Preview: Tom Robinson, writer of 'Glad to be Gay', examines bisexuality for BBC Radio 4|url=https://www.thepinknews.com/2011/09/09/preview-radio-4-examines-bisexuality-with-tom-robinson-getting-bi/|first=James|last=Park|newspaper=Pink News|date=9 September 2011|access-date=12 November 2024}}</ref>

==References == {{Reflist|refs= <ref name="Spiers">{{cite web |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> <ref name="Lysack">{{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|page=451|doi=10.2979/victorianstudies.55.3.451|jstor=10.2979/victorianstudies.55.3.451|s2cid=145243634|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/victorianstudies.55.3.451|url-access=subscription}}</ref> }}

Category:1881 establishments in the United Kingdom Category:1984 disestablishments in the United Kingdom Category:Defunct literary magazines published in the United Kingdom Category:Fiction magazines Category:Magazines established in 1881 Category:Magazines disestablished in 1984 Category:Magazines published in London Category:Magazines published in Manchester Category:Weekly magazines published in the United Kingdom