Nova (UK magazine)

File:Nova (UK magazine).jpg

Cover of Nova

Nova, published from March 1965 to October 1975, was a British magazine that has been described as "a politically radical, beautifully designed, intellectual women's magazine. In 1965 it discussed sex and the Pill, and epitomised the sophistication of London with its bold type and empty white space."

History

Founded by Harry Fieldhouse, Nova described itself as "the new kind of magazine for a new kind of woman". It was later edited by Dennis Hackett with Kevin d'Arcy as managing editor, Harry Peccinotti (Harry Peck) as art editor, Alma Birk as associate editor, and Molly Parkin as fashion editor. The Nova typeface, adapted from an old woodcut typeface, became a formative influence on typography for many years. The magazine was part of IPC Media.

Contributors to Nova included such notable and disparate writers as Graham Greene, Lynda Lee-Potter, Christopher Booker, Susan Sontag, and Agony aunt Irma Kurtz. Nova also published the autobiographical writing of Arthur Hopcraft, later expanded into his 1970 book The Great Apple Raid and Other Encounters of a Tin Chapel Tiro. In the early 1970s it featured experimental "impressionistic" fashion photographs by Helmut Newton, Don McCullin, and Terence Donovan. Illustrators included Mel Calman and Stewart Mackinnon.

Nova was famous in publishing circles as a woman's magazine that had more male than female readers, which was central to its financial decline.

The magazine was revived in May 2000, but it lasted just 13 issues, closing with its June 2001 issue.

External links

• Remembering Nova, exhibition at the Women's Library, 27 March – 26 August 2006

Further reading

• David Gibbs, ed., Nova 1965–1975, 1993

• Kate Muir, "The greatest magazine of all time", The Times, 22 April 2006.
• Mark Pottle, "Birk , Alma Lillian, Baroness Birk (1917–1996)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, October 2008 , Retrieved 30 May 2011.
• Richard Holt, "Hopcraft, Arthur Edward (1932–2004)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, January 2008; online edn, January 2011, Retrieved 30 May 2011.
• Robin Muir, "Donovan, Terence Daniel (1936–1996)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, October 2006, Retrieved 30 May 2011.
• Simon Heneage, "Calman, Melville (1931–1994)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, Retrieved 30 May 2011.