VintageMeld

“Periodicals and Permanent Literature” reprinted from the North American Review, December 1920, by Harry T. Baker. This is the 6th of 8 parts. More on this selection at the bottom of the page.

Part 6: Kipling:

Rudyard Kipling

A single illustration will make tolerably clear, I hope, the fact that there is no ground for pronounced pessimism today in discussing the relation of even the average periodical to literature. The living writer commonly recognized as preeminent is Rudyard Kipling. Well, the stories and articles of Kipling have appeared, from 1895 to 1918, in the following American periodicals (I give only one title in each case):

McClure’s, Kim; Century, The Brushwood Boy; Harper’s, The House Surgeon; Scribner’s, They; Collier’s some Canadian travel sketches; Metropolitan, Friendly Brook; Saturday Evening Post, The Eyes of Asia (a series of four stories); Cosmopolitan, Egypt of the Magicians.

Here is almost every type of magazine, from the most fastidious to the most popular, from a circulation of one hundred thousand to one of two million. The Saturday Evening Post, moreover, placed the first of its series on its front page; and Scribner’s did the same for that obscure but remarkable tale, They. The Century showed lack of editorial acumen by burying The Brushwood Boy on page 102; but this story was at first, and perhaps still remains, caviare to the general. The same is true of They. Doubtless the editors of Collier’s and the Saturday Evening Post would hardly have dared to try either on their readers. But the fact that the latter periodical should print anything of Kipling’s must discourage the professional pessimist who goes about bewailing the parlous state of American literature, and especially of American magazines. The ability of some academic critics to ignore good literature immediately under their eyes is amazing.

McClure's Magazine, May 1898 promotes Kipling's The Destroyers at the top of the front cover.

Kipling is as good a single example as could be chosen, because he represents the spirit of the age. He breaks sharply with Victorian tradition and creates, as a writer of a new age should, a new literature. Other distinguished writers who have gladly been received by contemporary magazines both in England and America are H.G. Wells, Arnold Bennett, John Galsworthy, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Maurice Hewlett, W.W. Jacobs, Alfred Noyes, Mrs. Humphrey Ward, Gertrude Atherton, Booth Tarkington, Winston Churchill, Edith Wharton and O. Henry. Not all of these on the highest level of literary craftsmanship; but all are above mediocrity.

Next: Part 7: No Distinction in Quality Between Books and the Best Periodicals
Previously: Part 5: Thackaray

I deal in a lot of old magazine back issues and from time to time find myself distracted paging through them. When the material provides a peek into the pop culture of yesteryear plus is old enough itself to be in the public domain, I’m going to do my best to transcribe it here, on the VintageMeld.

“Periodicals and Permanent Literature” struck me as an article extolling the virtues of magazine collecting in an age long before they were seriously collected. Published in one helping by the North American Review, I’ve split it into 8 serialized parts for the VintageMeld, each of which I hope both takes you back in time and presents you with a desire to hunt down some of the old issues for yourself.