The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850

There is scarcely a notable name in the literature of America that is not in some way connected with the Philadelphia magazines. Dennie and Brown, the first professional men-of-letters on this continent, were Philadelphia editors. Washington Irving edited the Analectic Magazine. James Russell Lowell, Edgar Allan Poe and Bayard Taylor were editorial writers on Graham's Magazine, and John Greenleaf Whittier edited The Pennsylvania Freeman.

Bryant and Cooper and Longfellow and Hawthorne and a hundred lesser men were constant contributors to the Philadelphia journals.

A striking difference between the older magazines and the recent ones is the conspicuous absence from the journal of a century ago of what is commonly called "light literature." Magazines were then conducted by scholars for scholars. "Popular" essays and silly novels had not yet depraved the taste of readers who could relish Somerville and Shenstone, Savage and Johnson. Articl