The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine (January issue)

The first issue of The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine appeared on January 1, 1856, and was edited by William Morris. The issue includes essays by Wilfred Heeley, William Fulford , and Edward Burne-Jones; stories by William Morris, Burne-Jones and Richard Watson Dixon; reviews by Heeley and Henry Macdonald; and a poem by Morris.

Burne-Jones wrote to his cousin Maria Choyce in 1855, telling her about the magazine, and in the letter lists the authors for each of the pieces in the first issue, and many in the second (quoted in Georgiana Burne-Jones, Memorials, p. 121-123.) Due in part to this letter, the January issue is the only issue of The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine for which the author of each entry is certain.

This first issue of the magazine put the Brotherhood in contact with some of the leading artists of the period. Copies were sent to Ruskin and Tennyson, and it was Burne-Jones's “Essay on the Newcomes *” in this issue that first caught DGR's attention.

The first letter of each entry in the Magazine is ornamental, and in this issue and the February issue, the ornamental letter of the first entry is larger than the rest. This practice was abandoned after the second issue (Forman 26).