3075 West Ledyard Way
Aptos, CA 95003
(831) 688-4535

La Belle Assemblée

About the La Belle Assemblée

John Bell (1745-1831) ran Bell’s Circulating Library, which c. 1778-1780, according to one of its catalogues had “above fifty thousand volumes (English, Italian, and French) in history, antiquities, voyages …” La Belle Assemblee was also sometimes called Bell’s Court and Fashionable Magazine or the Court Magazine and Belle Assemblee. The Early British Periodical Microfilm Series from University Microfilms has reproduced this magazine on reels 749 to 754. The first series of 7 volumes ran from February of 1806 to 1810; the new series of 30 volumes ran from 1810 to 1824, and the third series ran for fifteen volumes from 1825 to 1832. In Southern California, USC is the best place to look at original copies of this magazine; they have the issues from 1811-2 and 1825-32.

Laudermilk and Hamlin write: “This magazine contained a wealth of information on a wide range of women’s concerns. It was a true women’s magazine with celebrity anecdotes, instructions of manners, cosmetic advice, and beauty aids. Dress and fashion were covered in delightfully colored fashion plates–the best of which were from 1809 to 1820. Fashion plates were presented with lengthy, written descriptions, and modish gentlewomen pounced on the latest monthly issue. . . . The magazine was filled with advertisements that touted the wonders of various rouges, depilatories, powders, and corsets” (32-3).

This information was located on a research site, http://locutus.ucr.edu/~cathy/lb.html