Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country was to be managed by a fictitious editor, Oliver Yorke, much like Blackwood's Christopher North. The inebriated Yorke was the collective editorial voice which delivered sarcastic and even libellous comments.

Miriam Thrall sums up the first decade [of the publication] in her title 'Rebellious Fraser's': "an apt description for a journal of progressive thought, absolutely independent of party or faction." Much of the content centred on politics and religion, but there were enough literary entries to qualify Fraser's as a literary periodical" (Vann, J. Don in Sullivan, British Literary Magazines).

Many of the articles, stories and book reviews in the magazine are unsigned but attributed to W.M. Thackeray who wrote under the pseudonym M.A. Tidmarsh.