 Contributors to the magazine included leading authors of the day, such as Mary Elizabeth Braddon ("Lady Audley's Secret" and "The Outcast"), E. D. E. N. Southworth ("The Gypsy’s Prophecy"), and Pierce Egan ("The Poor Girl").But it was "Minnigrey" by the less well-known John Frederick Smith that made this weekly achieve hitherto unprecedented sales of 500,000 a week.George Frederick Sargent, artist on wood, and even more significantly the artist John Gilbert, contributed to engravings in the "London Journal".