The later covers of LIFE resemble nothing so much as the first covers of THE NEW YORKER. The magazines even overlapped in time, publishing many of the same artists months apart. Yet many LIFE covers looked totally unlike the cover of the preceding issue, or the next one; and sometimes not like anything ever published on any other magazine. It must have been a challenge to find it on the newsstand.
For a fuller discussion of LIFE, read the profile page. The first 80 volumes of the magazine are online at Hathi Trust.
In the period 1895-1920 a number of hardcover collections of material from the magazine were published, and sometimes turn up. In a couple of cases there were also regular magazine-like instalments of favorite images etc., and we try to include those as periodicals here. Here are some examples of the book versions, from Warren Bernard's collection as posted online by Christopher Wheeler.
Brenda Wiard, at 2Neat Magazines, has an extensive list of artists who drew for LIFE. They sell back issues of LIFE, and have provided us with numerous cover scans.
Quick Links by year:
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
- Life 1883 First Half Title Page 884 visits
- Life 1883-01-04 001 242 visits
- Life 1883-01-04a 576 visits
- Life 1883-02-15 587 visits
- Life 1883-07-05 563 visits
- Life 1883-07-26 578 visits
- Life 1883-08-16 528 visits
- Life 1883-08-30 545 visits
- Life 1883-09-06 530 visits
- Life 1883-09-13 501 visits
- Life 1883-09-20 510 visits
- Life 1883-10-04 529 visits
- Life 1883-10-11 563 visits
- Life 1883-10-18 532 visits
- Life 1883-11-22 548 visits
- Life 1883-11-29 557 visits
- Life 1883-12-20 479 visits
- Life 1883-12-27 456 visits
- Life 1884-01-10 455 visits
- Life 1884-01-17 519 visits
- Life 1884-01-24 458 visits
- Life 1884-02-07 465 visits
- Life 1884-02-14 451 visits
- Life 1884-02-21 454 visits
- Life 1884-02-28 4777 visits
- Life 1884-03-13 429 visits
- Life 1884-03-20 492 visits
- Life 1884-04-03 490 visits
- Life 1884-04-10 459 visits
- Life 1884-05-01 484 visits
- Life 1884-05-22 467 visits
- Life 1884-06-19 4256 visits
- Life 1884-07-17 4624 visits
- Life 1885 First Half Title Page 3625 visits
- Life 1885-01-01 3596 visits
- Life 1885-01-15 3446 visits
- Life 1885-01-22 3602 visits
- Life 1885-02-12 3474 visits
- Life 1885-02-19 3579 visits
- Life 1885-02-26 3272 visits
- Life 1885-04-09 3273 visits
- Life 1885-04-30 3217 visits
- Life 1885-05-07 3449 visits
- Life 1885-06-18 3300 visits
- Life 1886-07-01 621 visits
- Life 1886-07-08 150 visits
- Life 1886-07-15 132 visits
- Life 1886-07-22 129 visits
- Life 1886-07-29 105 visits
- Life 1886-08-05 122 visits
- Life 1886-08-12 121 visits
- Life 1886-08-19 124 visits
- Life 1886-08-26 123 visits
- Life 1886-09-02 137 visits
- Life 1886-09-09 113 visits
- Life 1886-09-16 116 visits
- Life 1886-09-23 122 visits
- Life 1886-10-07 118 visits
- Life 1886-10-14 110 visits
- Life 1886-10-21 119 visits
- Life 1886-10-28 120 visits
- Life 1886-11-04 116 visits
- Life 1886-11-11 121 visits
- Life 1886-11-18 120 visits
- Life 1886-11-25 127 visits
- Life 1886-12-02 117 visits
- Life 1886-12-16 116 visits
- Life 1886-12-23 118 visits
- Life 1887-01-06 252 visits
- Life 1887-01-13 231 visits
- Life 1887-01-20 240 visits
- Life 1887-01-27 242 visits
- Life 1887-02-03 229 visits
- Life 1887-02-10 225 visits
- Life 1887-02-17 233 visits
- Life 1887-02-24 243 visits
- Life 1887-03-03 233 visits
- Life 1887-03-10 225 visits
- Life 1887-03-17 225 visits
- Life 1887-03-24 220 visits