Part 38

In 1837 William E. Burton, the comedian, established in Philadelphia _The Gentleman’s Magazine_ to do for his sex what _Godey’s_ was doing for the ladies. Beginning with July, 1839, Poe became joint editor. The next year Burton sold out to George R. Graham, who combined the magazine with _The Casket_ (begun by Samuel Coate Atkinson in 1827) to form _Graham’s Lady’s and Gentleman’s Magazine_. For years _Graham’s_ was the most famous and truly national periodical in America. Graham understood the reading public as did few other men. He paid contributors liberally for those days, and collected a brilliant list of writers, including every name well known in letters at the time except Irving, who confined himself to _The Knickerbocker_. To _Graham’s_ Longfellow contributed his “Spanish Student,” “Childhood,” “The Builders,” “The Belfry of Bruges,” “The Arsenal at Springfield,” “Nuremberg,” etc. Poe contributed “The Mask of the Red Death,” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Conqueror Worm,” “Life in Death,” and some minor pieces. Here were first published also many of Hawthorne’s “Twice-Told Tales.” Simms, Paulding, Geo. H. Boker, Henry W. Herbert, Robert T. Conrad, E. P. Whipple, and John G. Saxe were “principal contributors.” Lowell and Bayard Taylor were editorial writers. Cooper received $1800, then a very high price, for “The Islets of the Gulf, or Rose Budd,” later republished as “Jack Tier, or The Florida Reefs,” and $1000 for a series of biographies of distinguished naval commanders. Nathaniel P. Willis wrote much between 1843 and 1851. In 1852, Graham boasted that in the decade previous he had paid American contributors between eighty and ninety thousand dollars. The circulation of the magazine for a long time was 40,000 copies. About 1854 Graham sold out. In competition with _Harper’s_ and _Putnam’s_, _Graham’s_ soon declined. In 1859 its name was changed to _The American Monthly_, and it quickly disappeared.

In 1839 Willis began, in connection with Dr. T. O. Porter, to issue a weekly, _The Corsair_, from the basement of the Astor House, New York. Willis was the chief writer, contributing romantic stories, dramatic criticism, letters from Europe entitled “Jottings Down in London,” and gossip. While in England he met Thackeray, whom he induced to contribute eight letters. In all, fifty-two numbers were printed, the last dated March 7, 1840.

The Transcendental Movement, which will be discussed elsewhere, found expression in 1840 in a Boston quarterly called _The Dial_, which flourished till 1844, and which was edited successively by George Ripley, Margaret Fuller, and Emerson. The last contributed more than thirty prose articles and poems, among them “The Conservative,” “Chardon Street and Bible Convention,” “The Transcendentalist,” and in verse “The Problem,” “The Sphinx,” and “Woodnotes.” Bronson Alcott sent his “Orphic Sayings,” the mystery of some of which has never been fathomed. Other writers were Theodore Parker, George Ripley, Thoreau, James Freeman Clarke, William H. and William Ellery Channing, Eliot Cabot, John S. Dwight, Christopher P. Cranch, Mrs. Ellen Hooper, and Charles A. Dana. “Conceived and carried on in a spirit of boundless hope and enthusiasm,” the magazine encountered much ridicule among the Philistines. _The Knickerbocker_ said of the first number:

It is to be devoted to that refinement upon common-sense literature, just now so much in vogue at the East; which, like the memorable science of Sir Piercie Shafton, shall indoctrinate the dull in intellectuality, the vulgar in nobility, and give that “unutterable perfection of human utterance”; that eloquence which no other eloquence is sufficient to praise; that art which, in fine, when we call it _literary Euphuism_, we bestow upon it its richest panegyric.

Yet in spite of such strictures, the contents of _The Dial_ are now immensely significant of the social agitation then going on in New England; and much of its matter has become a part of our permanent literature.

_The New World_, a large weekly established in New York by Park Benjamin (1840-1845), reprinted much from the English magazines, but included also contributions from Epes and John Osborne Sargent, James Aldrich, Herbert, Charles Lanman, Edward S. Gould, Charles Eames (editor for a time), and John Jay. George P. Putnam, the publisher, was for some years its London correspondent.

It was in _Peterson’s Ladies’ National Magazine_ (a fashion journal begun in Philadelphia in 1841) that Frances Hodgson Burnett published her first story, “Ethel’s Sir Lancelot” (November, 1868). The magazine, long popular among readers of light literature, was a few years since merged with _The Argosy_.

_The Union Magazine_ (New York, 1847-1848), edited by Mrs. Caroline M. Kirkland, was bought by John Sartain, the engraver, and William Sloanaker, who had withdrawn from the managership of _Graham’s_, and reappeared in Philadelphia (1849-1852) as _Sartain’s Union Magazine of Literature and Art_, attaining great popularity. It published works by Longfellow (“The Blind Girl of Castel Cuillé,” “Resignation”), Boker, Mrs. Sigourney, Lucy Larcom, Henry T. Tuckerman, Poe (“The Bells”), Park Benjamin, R. H. Stoddard, and Charles G. Leland.

_Harper’s New Monthly Magazine_ (New York), established by the Messrs. Harper in June, 1850, has long enjoyed a deservedly large circulation. For a considerable time it contained chiefly articles, especially fiction, reprinted from English periodicals. In later years it has included much more from American writers, and its contents have in general been of a high order of merit. Its records of travel and of scientific progress have been valuable. For many years the “Easy Chair,” conducted by George William Curtis, and later by William D. Howells, has been an interesting feature. In _Harper’s_ first appeared Howells’ “Annie Kilburn” and “Their Silver Wedding Journey,” Warner’s “Studies of the Great West” and “A Little Journey in the World,” Constance F. Woolson’s “Jupiter Lights,” “East Angels,” and “Anne,” Poulteney Bigelow’s “White Man’s Africa,” Stockton’s “Bicycle of Cathay” and “The Great Stone of Sardis,” John Fox, Jr.’s “Kentuckians,” Stephen Crane’s “Whilomville Stories,” Mark Twain’s “Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc,” Woodrow Wilson’s “Colonies and Nation,” Mary E. Wilkins’ “Portion of Labor,” Mary Johnston’s “Sir Mortimer,” and Margaret Deland’s “Awakening of Helena Richie.” _The International Magazine_, founded by Rufus W. Griswold in New York in 1850, was two years later merged with _Harper’s_.

_Putnam’s Monthly Magazine_ began publication in New York in 1853. Its earlier editors were Charles F. Briggs (whose pen name was “Harry Franco”), Parke Godwin, George W. Curtis, and George P. Putnam. Among the more important of the early contributions may be mentioned “Shakespeare’s Scholar” by Richard Grant White, “Early Years in Europe” by George H. Calvert, “The Potiphar Papers” and “Prue and I” by George W. Curtis, a series of political essays by Parke Godwin, “Fireside Travels” and “A Moosehead Journal” by James Russell Lowell, the “Sparrowgrass Papers” by Frederick S. Cozzens, “Cape Cod” by Henry W. Thoreau, “Wensley” by Edmund Quincy, and “Israel Potter” by Herman Melville. _Putnam’s_ was one of the first of American magazines which restricted its pages to original contributions, and which gave special attention to the encouragement of the work of American writers. Published till 1857 and from 1868 till 1870, it was revived in 1906 as _Putnam’s Monthly_, under the editorial direction of Joseph B. Gilder and George H. Putnam. _Putnam’s_ is still to be described as a literary magazine, although space is given also to illustrated articles on popular topics. _Putnam’s_ arranges with certain of the English magazines, such as _The Cornhill Magazine_ and _The Fortnightly Review_, to share contributors, English as well as American. The essays of Mrs. Richmond Ritchie (Thackeray’s daughter) and of Mr. Arthur C. Benson, for instance, have, under such an arrangement, been published simultaneously in _The Cornhill_ and in _Putnam’s_.

The year 1857 is memorable for the founding of _The Atlantic Monthly_ by the publishing firm of Phillips & Sampson of Boston. James Russell Lowell became the first editor, accepting the post on condition that Dr. Holmes, who suggested the name, should be engaged as the first contributor. Among those who wrote for the first number were Longfellow, Lowell, Emerson, Motley, Holmes (who began “The Autocrat”), Whittier, Charles Eliot Norton, J. T. Trowbridge, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Parke Godwin. Most of these were already well known authors. The list of contributors to _The Atlantic_ during the half-century of its life includes all of the most illustrious of American writers--not only of New England, but of all parts of the country. In religious thought its attitude has been reverent but liberal. The achievements of science have been set forth by men like Agassiz, Percival Lowell, Simon Newcomb, John Trowbridge, George F. Wright, and George H. Darwin. The new political and economic questions have been discussed by such men as President Roosevelt, former President Cleveland, Richard Olney, Woodrow Wilson, Carl Schurz, John W. Foster, Henry Loomis Nelson, Edward M. Shepard, Benjamin Kidd, John Jay Chapman, and Thomas Nelson Page. The fiction of _The Atlantic_ has been produced mainly by American writers--Hawthorne (“Septimius Felton”), Henry James, Jr. (“Roderick Hudson,” “The Portrait of a Lady”), Aldrich (“The Stillwater Tragedy,” “Prudence Palfrey”), Bret Harte, Howells (“Their Wedding Journey,” “A Chance Acquaintance,” “The Lady of the Aroostook”), Mark Twain, Marion Crawford (“A Roman Singer,” “Paul Patoff,” “Don Orsino”), Stockton (“The House of Martha”), S. Weir Mitchell (“In War Time”), Hopkinson Smith (“Caleb West”), Cable (“Bylow Hill”), Paul Leicester Ford (“The Story of an Untold Love”), Mary Johnston (“To Have and to Hold,” “Audrey”), Sarah Orne Jewett (“The Tory Lover”), Margaret Deland (“Sidney,” “Philip and His Wife”), Kate Douglas Wiggin (“Penelope’s Progress”), and many others. An equally brilliant list might be made of the essayists whose best work has made its initial appearance in the form of _Atlantic_ articles. The editors have been Lowell (1857-1861), James T. Fields, of the firm of Ticknor & Fields, then the publishers (1861-1871), William Dean Howells (1871-1880), Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1880-1890), Horace E. Scudder (1890-1897), Walter H. Page (1897-1899), and Bliss Perry--an illustrious roll. _The Atlantic_ has never changed its original purpose.

It is still [to quote a recent writer] an American magazine for American readers.... It holds that the most important service which an American magazine can perform is the interpretation of this country to itself, by the promotion of sympathy between the different sections of our varied population, the frank examination of our national characteristics, the study of our perplexing problems, the encouragement of our art and literature, and the reinforcement of those moral and religious beliefs upon which depends the success of our experiment in self-government.

These ideals largely explain the success and permanence of _The Atlantic_. _The Galaxy_, founded in New York in 1866, after furnishing for several years an entertaining literary and scientific miscellany, was in 1878 incorporated with _The Atlantic_.

_Lippincott’s Magazine_, established in Philadelphia in 1868, continues to devote its chief energies to fiction, though it has also published some notable poetry. Here appeared Lanier’s “Corn,” Edward Kearsley’s “CampFire Lyrics,” and some of the verse of Emma Lazarus, Maurice Thompson, Paul H. Hayne, Celia Thaxter, and Philip Bourke Marston.

_The Overland Monthly_ (San Francisco, 1868-1875, 1883 to the present time) has faithfully mirrored the picturesque and stirring life of the Far West. It absorbed _The Californian_ (1880-1882). The first five volumes were edited by Bret Harte, and a large number of his stories, probably forming his best literary work, first appeared in its columns.

_Old and New_ (Boston, 1870-1875) was conducted by Edward Everett Hale with the intention of “squeezing from the Old its lessons for the New” and of combining amusing with instructive literature after the manner of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_.

In 1870, Dr. Josiah G. Holland and Roswell B. Smith projected _Scribner’s Monthly_ (New York), and for eleven years Dr. Holland was its editor. In 1881 it was changed to _The Century Magazine_ and under the editorship of Richard Watson Gilder has taken high rank as a distinctively popular magazine. It has given special attention to popular history, and its literary, historical, and scientific articles, generally substantial and meritorious, have appealed to a wide range of readers. Like _Harper’s_, it has drawn upon all of the leading writers, for example Harte (“Gabriel Conroy”), Cable (“The Grandissimes,” “Dr. Sevier”), Howells (“A Modern Instance,” “A Woman’s Reason,” “Silas Lapham”), Stockton (“Rudder Grange,” “The Merry Chanter,” “The Hundredth Man”), Boyesen (“Falconberg”), John Hay (“The Bread-Winners”), Henry James, Jr. (“Confidence,” “The Bostonians”), Eugene Schuyler (“Peter the Great”), Joel Chandler Harris (“Uncle Remus”), Hamlin Garland (“Her Mountain Lover”), Mary Hallock Foote (“The Led-Horse Claim,” “Cœur d’Alene”), Marion Crawford (“Via Crucis”), Mark Twain (“Pudd’nhead Wilson”), S. Weir Mitchell (“Characteristics,” “Hugh Wynne”). Many poems of merit have also been printed in _The Century_.

In 1887, _Scribner’s Magazine_ was established by Charles Scribner’s Sons, and has since taken rank as among the first of American monthlies. It devotes proportionately more space to literature than is given by its competitor, _The Century Magazine_, and pays less attention to so-called popular subjects. Like _The Century_, it contains illustrations, which are characterised by a high artistic standard. _Scribner’s_ is under the editorial management of Mr. Edward L. Burlingame. Like _The Century_, it is published in London as well as in New York.

Among the other literary periodicals established within the last quarter-century are _The Bay State Monthly_ (Boston, 1884-1885), which became in 1886 _The New England Magazine_, and which confines itself chiefly to the history and literature of New England; _The Forum_ (New York, since 1886), devoted to the discussion of present-day questions; _The Cosmopolitan_ (New York, since 1886), a typical popular monthly miscellany; _The Arena_ (New York, since 1889), which has been a fearless exponent of advanced liberal thought; _Munsey’s Magazine_ (New York, since 1891), well illustrated, and claiming a circulation of over 600,000 copies; _McClure’s Magazine_, established by S. S. McClure in New York in 1893, which by the end of its first year circulated 150,000 copies; _The Bookman_ (New York), edited since 1895 by Harry Thurston Peck; and _The Reader_ (Indianapolis, Indiana, 1902), now merged in _Putnam’s Monthly_.

_The Annuals._--In the twenties and thirties of the last century, too, the annuals were popular in America as in England. Almost all of the leading authors contributed to them. Among the best were _The Talisman_ (New York, 1828-1830), written by Bryant, Verplanck, and Sands, and illustrated by Inman, Samuel F. B. Morse, and others; and _The Token_ (Boston, 1828-1842), edited by S. G. Goodrich (“Peter Parley”) and (in 1829) N. P. Willis, in which appeared contributions by Longfellow, Hawthorne (some “Twice-Told Tales”), Mrs. Child, Mrs. Sigourney, and Mrs. Hale. In general, however, the American, like the British annuals, included a large amount of mediocre writing.

_The Reviews._--The American reviews begin with _The American Review of History and Politics_, founded by Robert Walsh (Philadelphia, 1811-1813). In 1815 _The North American Review and Miscellaneous Journal_ was founded in Boston and has consequently had the longest life of all the periodicals now in existence. Its founder, William Tudor, was, we have seen, a member of the Anthology Club, and a writer of fine taste, who later did good service in a diplomatic career in South America. The _Review_ was at first published every two months in numbers of 150 pages each; after the seventh volume it appeared quarterly in numbers of 250 pages each and at the same time ceased to publish poetry and general news, thus conforming more closely to the leading type of contemporary British reviews. The most voluminous contributors to the first sixty volumes were Judge Willard Phillips (editor in 1817), Tudor, Edward and Alexander Everett (editors in 1819-1822 and 1830-1836 respectively), Jared Sparks (editor in 1822-1830), Bancroft, Francis Bowen (editor in 1843-1853), Nathan Hale, George S. Hillard, John G. Palfrey (editor in 1836-1843), Oliver, William, and Andrew Peabody, Caleb Cushing, Cornelius C. Felton, William H. Prescott, and Charles Francis Adams. Much of Whipple’s criticism originally appeared here. Among recent editors have been Lowell, Charles Eliot Norton, Henry Adams, and Henry Cabot Lodge. Bryant’s “Thanatopsis” first appeared here in September, 1817. The book reviews, especially between 1850 and 1870, were probably better than those usually found in any other American periodical. In recent years the character of _The North American_ has largely changed. It now offers monthly a collection of signed articles chiefly on current political and social problems.

Other early reviews were _The Christian Examiner and Theological Review_ (Boston, 1824-1869, in 1870 merged with _Old and New_), in which appeared some of the most virile criticism of the time; _The American Quarterly Review_ (Philadelphia, 1827-1837), another of Walsh’s ventures and a quarterly of merit; _The Southern Review_ (Charleston, 1828-1832, revived 1842-1855), started by William Elliott and Hugh S. Legare; _The Western Review_ (Cincinnati, 1828-1830), founded by Timothy Flint; _The New York Review_ (1837-1842), established by Francis L. Hawks and later edited by Joseph G. Cogswell and Caleb S. Henry; _The Boston Quarterly Review_ (1838-1842), edited by Orestes A. Brownson, and merged with _The United States Magazine and Democratic Review_ (Washington and New York, 1837-1852), which became _The United States Review_ (1853-1859); _The New Englander_ (New Haven, Conn., 1843-1892), for religious, historical, and literary articles; _The American Whig Review_ (New York, 1845-1852), started by George H. Colton and later edited by Dr. James D. Whelpley; _The Literary World_ (New York, 1847-1853), ably edited by Evart A. Duyckinck; _The Massachusetts Quarterly Review_ (Boston, 1847-1850), edited by Theodore Parker; _The New York Quarterly Review_ (1852-1853); and _The National Quarterly Review_ (New York, 1860-1880).

_The Nation_ was founded as a weekly in New York in 1865 by Edwin Lawrence Godkin, who remained its editor for a third of a century. Since 1881, when Mr. Godkin assumed the editorial control of the New York _Evening Post, The Nation_ has been issued as the weekly edition of _The Evening Post_. During the forty-three years of its existence, _The Nation_ has held a leading position in American criticism and also as an exponent of American politics considered from an independent point of view. From 1881 to 1905, _The Nation_ was under the editorial management of the late Wendell Phillips Garrison. It is now under the direction of Mr. Hammond Lamont. The literary department is conducted by Mr. Paul E. More, who had, before assuming this editorial post, made a name for himself in literary criticism.

_The International Review_ (New York, 1874-1883) printed many articles of solid worth. _The Dial_, semi-monthly, was established in Chicago in 1880 by Francis F. Browne. It has made a noteworthy reputation for a high standard of American criticism, and has retained the services of some of the ablest of American reviewers. _The Critic_ was founded, as a weekly literary journal, in New York, in 1881, by Jeannette L. Gilder and Joseph B. Gilder. It did good work in literary criticism and in the presentation of literary news for twenty-five years, when it was absorbed by _Putnam’s Monthly_. _The Sewanee Review_, a quarterly founded at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, in 1892, and _The South Atlantic Quarterly_, founded at Durham, North Carolina, in 1902, are publishing the best literary criticism in the South to-day.

_Newspapers._--The plan of this Manual permits but a brief reference to the more important of the newspapers which have given attention to the interests of literature. The New York _Evening Post_ was founded in 1801, and was for fifty-two years (1828-1880) edited by Bryant. In 1819, it printed the well-known “Croaker Papers” by Drake and Halleck. James K. Paulding was an occasional contributor, and Whitman was one of its Washington writers during the first year of the Civil War, 1861. Bret Harte was for a time on the editorial staff, and the list of the literary critics includes the names of John R. Thompson and John Bigelow. During the years 1881-1902, _The Evening Post_ was under the editorial control of Edwin L. Godkin, who was an Irishman by birth, an Englishman by education, and an American by what may be called natural selection. His editorials in _The Evening Post_ constitute a most important contribution to the literature of journalism, or it may be more precise to say to the journalism of literature. They were forcible, witty, and incisive, and always represented the earnest convictions of the writer. _The Evening Post_, which still gives a full measure of dignified and effective consideration to literature, is now under the editorial direction of Messrs. Rollo Ogden and Oswald G. Villard. Its literary department is managed by Paul E. More.

_The New York Tribune_ was founded in 1841 by Horace Greeley, who must also take rank as one of the noteworthy American editors. For thirty-one years, George Ripley had the chief responsibility for its literary department, and among his associates were Bayard Taylor and Margaret Fuller. A number of the more important reviews, particularly those having to do with English criticism and with poetry, were the work of Edmund C. Stedman. Miss Ellen Hutchinson, later associated with Mr. Stedman in editing the “Library of American Literature,” was for many years on the literary staff of _The Tribune_.

_The Sun_ was founded in 1833, and was for many years managed by a third great American editor, Charles A. Dana. The incisive force and stirring wit of Dana’s editorials have probably never been equalled in American journalism, unless it were in the columns of Godkin’s Post. _The Sun_ has always given much attention to literature, and the weekly contributions of Mr. Mayo W. Hazeltine have for many years taken first rank among the critical literary essays of the day.

_The Times_ was founded in 1851 by Henry J. Raymond, an early associate of Horace Greeley. During the past twelve years, _The Times_ has given a larger measure of attention to literature than any other paper in the country. Its literary department finally became sufficiently important to call for a separate printing, and it is now issued as a weekly literary supplement. The present editor of the supplement, which presents a convenient and comprehensive summary of the publications of each week, is Mr. William Bayard Hale. The literary supplement has secured for its regular contributors a number of the more capable critics of the day, among whom may be mentioned Mr. Edward Cary, Miss Elizabeth Luther Cary, Miss Hildegarde Hawthorne, and Mr. Montgomery Schuyler.