Harper's New Monthly Magazine February 1893

            I chose to look at the February 1893 issue of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. I thought about looking up one of the periodicals online but decided to go to the library instead. Although I have done something similar to this research before, I can never get over how much better it is to have a concrete volume of the magazine or newspaper in your hands rather than looking at it on a computer screen. The library research assignment is one of my favorite things about this class because it gives you the unique experience of looking at writing as a piece of history from the American past; I honestly doubt I would have ever thought to go look up an old newspaper on my own.  

            I skimmed through a few issues of the magazine before I settled on one. The front page of the February edition caught my attention because it was a background piece on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. As I was reading through it, one line was without a doubt my favorite of the entire issue: “I cannot believe that Shakespeare was ever one of those lugubrious poets and romancers who see everything draped in black, and insist on fixing their dreary smoke spectacles over the eyes of the public.” I cannot help but hope the same thing myself! I thought that the author of this piece expressed his sentiment so perfectly; I could see exactly what his point was. After reading this issue of Harper’s and reflecting on some of the other pieces we have read this semester, it seems to me that we have lost a lot of the beauty that used to be in our language. The precision that Americans use in choosing their words has faltered considerably in the last hundred years or so.

            After the article on Shakespeare, there was a well written obituary-type piece on John Whittier, the poet. Although the piece was clearly a commemoration of John Whittier post-mortem, it did not read like an obituary at all. In describing his death, the author wrote, “His last illness was brief…and thus the waves of time passed over him and swept him from our sight.” Had you not realized that this was about an actual person, the “obituary” would have seemed like an ending to a work of fiction! Later on in the issue, there was another piece about George William Curtis that was comparable to the one on Whittier because it followed the same type of commemorative style. I also noticed that in both pieces, the works of these men were set up alongside those of Emerson, Thoreau, and Longfellow when discussing their worth. I thought it was interesting that the authors saw it necessary to include that. It goes to show that these authors were all widely recognized by the audience who read Harper’s Magazine because they all would have published their pieces in it.

            Interspersed throughout the magazine were works of both fiction and non-fiction, accompanied by sketches of aspiring artists. I went from reading a piece called “New Orleans, Our Southern Capital,” which seemed like a ten page long advertisement, to a piece called “Tio Juan,” which was clearly a fictional short story. After “Tio Juan” there were eight chapters of “The Refugees” by A. Conan Doyle which seemed to be a novel that was subsequently printed in each new issue of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. I found the first chapters in the January issue, and the end of the February issue stated “to be continued.” The idea of publishing a novel in a magazine seems crazy now. I cannot imagine an author being successful by publishing their works in that manner in today’s society, but Doyle must have had a following audience for the magazine to keep publishing his work. Besides the writing, the sketches were something that you never see in contemporary magazines; the illustrations were entrancing because of the sheer amount of detail that was put into each one.

            Just before the editor’s notes, I saw a small section titled “Monthly Record of Events.” Underneath, there was a detailed account of the recent presidential election in 1892 of which Grover Cleveland was pronounced the winner from the Democratic Party. Just after this was an account of a natural disaster, an earthquake, that had also occurred in November with a statement that victims were still recovering. In light of our recent election and Hurricane Sandy, I thought it was an interesting parallel. Although writing styles and magazine structures have changed, some things in America have clearly not changed as much as others.