Did you buy our fabulous 150th Anniversary Special, after it went on sale in September 2018?
It was spectacular, wasn’t it? Gorgeous to look at. Packed full of interesting facts on the history of “The People’s Friend” and the times throughout which it has been a stalwart of women’s reading pleasure.
My first reaction t0 the final product? “Wow.”
My second was, “Uh-oh.” Why?
Well, that Collector’s Edition was almost completely compiled by our Features team. And I knew that the Fiction team was scheduled to compile our own for publication in the second half of the year.
Talk about setting the bar high! As well as seeing a stunning publication, I saw it as the hard act that we had to follow.
Many of our writers know we’ve been working on a huge project throughout 2019. As we’ve told them, it’s the reason our reading has slowed down, and our responses are lagging a bit behind. But we didn’t reveal exactly what the huge project was. We simply toiled away, keeping it under wraps, making vague excuses.
However, it goes to press next week, on the 22nd. That’s the “dummy” in the pic, ready for final corrs. Phew!
But what, precisely, is “it”?
Its official title is “The People’s Friend 150 Years Of Short Stories Special Collector’s Edition”. It’s 36 stories from the Archives of “The People’s Friend”.
The first story was published in 1869, with the last published just this year in 2019. Along with the other 34, they represent 150 remarkable years of quality fiction. They capture changing tastes, changing times, changing roles for women. They cover war and peace, love and loss. There’s humour and heartbreak.
It’s a very special collection. We carefully chose each story because it captures a moment in time.
And we didn’t forget the importance of poetry throughout our history, either. It’s all there.
We’re immensely proud of it as a publication. We hope you enjoy it.
“The People’s Friend 150 Years Of Short Stories Special Collector’s Edition” is on sale from September 2, priced £6.99.
But it’s available for pre-order right now at the DC Thomson Shop. Click here to get yours!
Shirley Blair Fiction Ed Shirley’s been with the “Friend” since 2007 and calls it her dream job because she gets to read fiction all day every day. Hobbies? Well, that would be reading! She also enjoys writing fiction when she has time, long walks, travel, and watching Scandi thrillers on TV.
