The Cheap Magazine, subtitled "The Poor Man's Fireside Companion", was a fourpenny Haddington

Haddington, East Lothian

The Royal Burgh of Haddington is a town in East Lothian, Scotland. It is the main administrative, cultural and geographical centre for East Lothian, which was known officially as Haddingtonshire before 1921. It lies about east of Edinburgh. The name Haddington is Anglo-Saxon, dating from the 6th...

 monthly published from 1813 to 1815 by George Miller (1771-1835), an East Lothian

East Lothian

East Lothian is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, and a lieutenancy Area. It borders the City of Edinburgh, Scottish Borders and Midlothian. Its administrative centre is Haddington, although its largest town is Musselburgh....

 printer. As "one of the first attempts to diffuse a pure and useful literature among the less educated portion of Scotland", this effort foreshadowed later publications such as Chambers's Edinburgh Journal

Chambers's Edinburgh Journal

Chambers's Edinburgh Journal was a weekly 16-page magazine started by William Chambers in 1832. The first edition was dated 4 February 1832, and priced at one penny. Topics included history, religion, language, and science...

and the Penny Magazine

Penny Magazine

The Penny Magazine, published every Saturday from 31 March 1832 to 31 October 1845, was an illustrated British magazine aimed at the working class. Charles Knight created it for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in response to Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, which started two months...

. Yet a cheap price required a large circulation, and Miller's attempt to sustain a large readership without taking any definite religious position ended in financial failure.