Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 1. No 1, June 1850
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Various
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 1. No 1, June 1850
ADVERTISEMENT
The Publishers take great pleasure in presenting herewith the first volume of the New Monthly Magazine. It was projected and commenced in the belief, that it might be made the means of bringing within the reach of the great mass of the American people, an immense amount of useful and entertaining reading matter, to which, on account of the great number and expense of the books and periodicals in which it originally appears, they have hitherto had no access. The popularity of the work has outstripped their most sanguine expectations. Although but six months have elapsed since it was first announced, it has already attained a regular monthly issue of more than Fifty Thousand Copies, and the rate of its increase is still unchecked. Under these circumstances, the Publishers would consider themselves failing in duty, as well as in gratitude, to the public, if they omitted any exertion within their power to increase its substantial value and its attractiveness. It will be their aim to present, in a style of typography unsurpassed by any similar publication in the world, every thing of general interest and usefulness which the current literature of the times may contain. They will seek, in every article, to combine entertainment with instruction, and to enforce, through channels which attract rather than repel attention and favor, the best and most important lessons of morality and of practical life. They will spare neither labor nor expense in any department of the work; freely lavishing both upon the editorial aid, the pictorial embellishments, the typography, and the general literary resources by which they hope to give the Magazine a popular circulation, unequaled by that of any similar periodical ever published in the world. And they are satisfied that they may appeal with confidence to the present volume, for evidence of the earnestness and fidelity with which they will enter upon the fulfillment of these promises for the future.
A WORD AT THE START
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, of which this is the initial number, will be published every month, at the rate of three dollars per annum. Each number will contain as great an amount and variety of reading matter, and at least as many pictorial illustrations, and will be published in the same general style, as the present.
The design of the Publishers, in issuing this work, is to place within the reach of the great mass of the American people the unbounded treasures of the Periodical Literature of the present day. Periodicals enlist and absorb much of the literary talent, the creative genius, the scholarly accomplishment of the present age. The best writers, in all departments and in every nation, devote themselves mainly to the Reviews, Magazines, or Newspapers of the day. And it is through their pages that the most powerful historical Essays, the most elaborate critical Disquisitions, the most eloquent delineations of Manners and of Nature, the highest Poetry and the most brilliant Wit, have, within the last ten years, found their way to the public eye and the public heart.
This devotion to Periodical writing is rapidly increasing. The leading authors of Great Britain and of France, as well as of the United States, are regular and constant contributors to the Periodicals of their several countries. The leading statesmen of France have been for years the leading writers in her journals. Lamartine has just become the editor of a newspaper. Dickens has just established a weekly journal of his own, through which he is giving to the world some of the most exquisite and delightful creations that ever came from his magic pen. Alison writes constantly for Blackwood. Lever is enlisted in the Dublin University Magazine. Bulwer and Croly publish their greatest and most brilliant novels first in the pages of the Monthly Magazines of England and of Scotland. Macaulay, the greatest of living Essayists