VintageMeld

“Periodicals and Permanent Literature” reprinted from the North American Review, December 1920, by Harry T. Baker. This is the 7th of 8 parts. More on this selection at the bottom of the page.

Part 7: No Distinction in Quality Between Books and the Best Periodicals:

Edgar Allan Poe

The purpose and accomplishment of a good periodical in stimulating the production of real literature has been well stated in an article, The History of the Century Magazine, published in the Century for November, 1881:

The monthly magazine is the great modern intellectual amphi-theater, and the publicity it is able to give to works of excellence of widely differing kinds is a perpetual stimulus to the intellectual activity of a nation … The literary and artistic judgment of the editor … must directly and strongly affect the taste and culture of the people … The public, in turn, imposes the authority.

Mr. Alden is much more explicit and bold in the introduction to his volume, Magazine Writing (Page vi.):

Since 1860, no distinction, as to quality or as to any substantial values, can be made between the best books and the best periodicals.

This is somewhat too optimistic; yet it challenges attention and can only in part be discredited. Mr. Alden, Mr. Gilder and various other editors of the best class have done much to foster the growth of good American literature. Authors have been indebted to them for many timely suggestions and have received few or no undesirable ones. Richard Watson Gilder acted on the principle, says Professor Brander Matthews, “that what was truly good was certain to be popular.” Catering to a subscription list of about a hundred thousand, Mr. Gilder could afford to believe and practice this; but it would obviously be a dangerous assumption for an editor who must think of the limitations and prejudices of two million subscribers. If such a principle were universally applicable to modern periodicals, the millennium would be here.

It is significant, however, profoundly significant, that as Mr. Alden has pointed out, most of the best novels of the past fifty years have first had serial publication. This is a tribute at once to editors and to magazine readers. In the field of the short story the service of the periodical is even more important; for collections of short stories within the covers of a book are not encouraged by publishers, and a good many short-story writers of unquestionable genius would have been snuffed out at the beginning of their careers except for the possibility of magazine publication. Apparently readers like their short fiction in small doses and feel cheated when offered a volume of brief tales as a substitute for a novel. Most of Poe’s masterpieces were first published in magazines, including Graham’s, the Broadway Journal, Godey’s Lady’s Book and the Southern Literary Messenger. Like Lowell, Poe also had editorial experience, on Graham’s, the Broadway, and the Evening Mirror. Hawthorne wrote for Graham’s, and later for the Atlantic and Putnam’s. Among other notable contributors to Putnam’s were Lowell, Bryant, Emerson and Longfellow. After 1860, nearly every American author of any note had an opportunity–which most of them embraced–to write for some periodical. Toward the close of the century, Harper’s had such names as Mark Twain, Henry James, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Margaret Deland, William Dean Howells, Walt Whitman, Mary E. Wilkins, Thomas Hardy, Conan Doyle, Richard Harding Davis and Thomas Nelson Page. Clearly, then, some American magazines have had a vital connection with genuine literature.

Next: Part 8: Conclusion
Previously: Part 6: Kipling

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.