Aliterary magazine is aperiodical devoted toliterature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publishshort stories,poetry, andessays, along withliterary criticism,book reviews, biographical profiles of authors,interviews and letters. Literary magazines are often calledliterary journals, orlittle magazines, terms intended to contrast them with larger, commercialmagazines.[1]
Nouvelles de la république des lettres is regarded as the first literary magazine; it was established byPierre Bayle inFrance in 1684.[2] Literary magazines became common in the early part of the 19th century, mirroring an overall rise in the number of books, magazines, and scholarlyjournals being published at that time. InGreat Britain, criticsFrancis Jeffrey,Henry Brougham andSydney Smith founded theEdinburgh Review in 1802. Other British reviews of this period included theWestminster Review (1824),The Spectator (1828), andAthenaeum (1828). In the United States, early journals included thePhiladelphia Literary Magazine (1803–1808), theMonthly Anthology (1803–11), which became theNorth American Review, theYale Review (founded in 1819),The Yankee (1828–1829)The Knickerbocker (1833–1865),Dial (1840–44) and the New Orleans–basedDe Bow's Review (1846–80). Several prominent literary magazines were published inCharleston, South Carolina, includingThe Southern Review (1828–32) andRussell's Magazine (1857–60).[3] The most prominent Canadian literary magazine of the 19th century was the Montreal-basedLiterary Garland.[4]
TheNorth American Review, founded in 1815, is the oldest American literary magazine. However, it had its publication suspended during World War II, and theYale Review (founded in 1819) did not; thus the Yale journal is the oldest literary magazine in continuous publication. Begun in 1889,Poet Lore is considered the oldest journal dedicated to poetry.[5] By the end of the century, literary magazines had become an important feature of intellectual life in many parts of the world. One of the most notable 19th century literary magazines of theArabic-speaking world wasAl-Urwah al-Wuthqa.[6]
Among the literary magazines that began in the early part of the 20th century isPoetry magazine. Founded in 1912, it publishedT. S. Eliot's first poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock". Another wasThe Bellman, which began publishing in 1906 and ended in 1919, was edited by William Crowell Edgar and was based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.[7] Other important early-20th century literary magazines includeThe Times Literary Supplement (1902),Southwest Review (1915),Virginia Quarterly Review (1925),World Literature Today (founded in 1927 asBooks Abroad before assuming its present name in 1977),Southern Review (1935), andNew Letters (1935). TheSewanee Review, although founded in 1892, achieved prominence largely thanks toAllen Tate, who became editor in 1944.[8]
Two of the most influential—though radically different—journals of the last half of the 20th century wereThe Kenyon Review (KR) and thePartisan Review.The Kenyon Review, edited byJohn Crowe Ransom, espoused the so-calledNew Criticism. Its platform was avowedly unpolitical. Although Ransom came from the South and published authors from that region,KR also published many New York–based and international authors.The Partisan Review was first associated with the American Communist Party and theJohn Reed Club; however, it soon broke ranks with the party. Nevertheless, politics remained central to its character, while it also published significant literature and criticism.
The middle-20th century saw a boom in the number ofliterary magazines, which corresponded with the rise of thesmall press. Among the important journals which began in this period wereNimbus: A Magazine of Literature, the Arts, and New Ideas, which began publication in 1951 in England, theParis Review, which was founded in 1953,The Massachusetts Review andPoetry Northwest, which were founded in 1959,X Magazine, which ran from 1959 to 1962, and theDenver Quarterly, which began in 1965. The 1970s saw another surge in the number of literary magazines, with a number of distinguished journals getting their start during this decade, includingColumbia: A Journal of Literature and Art,Ploughshares,The Iowa Review,Granta,Agni,The Missouri Review, andNew England Review. Other highly regarded print magazines of recent years includeThe Threepenny Review,The Georgia Review,Ascent,Shenandoah,The Greensboro Review,ZYZZYVA,Glimmer Train,Tin House,Half Mystic Journal, the Canadian magazineBrick, the Australian magazineHEAT, andZoetrope: All-Story. Some short fiction writers, such asSteve Almond,Jacob M. Appel andStephen Dixon have built national reputations in the United States primarily through publication in literary magazines.[citation needed]
TheCommittee of Small Magazine Editors and Publishers (COSMEP) was founded byRichard Morris in 1968. It was an attempt to organize the energy of the small presses. Len Fulton, editor and founder of Dustbook Publishing, assembled and published the first real list of these small magazines and their editors in the mid-1970s. This made it possible for poets to pick and choose the publications most amenable to their work and the vitality of these independent publishers was recognized by the larger community, including theNational Endowment for the Arts, which created a committee to distribute support money for this burgeoning group of publishers called the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines (CCLM). This organisation evolved into theCouncil of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP).
Many prestigious awards exist for works published in literary magazines including thePushcart Prize and theO. Henry Awards. Literary magazines also provide many of the pieces inThe Best American Short Stories andThe Best American Essays annual volumes.
InArgentina, literary magazines were profoundly impactful in the social and political discussions all throughout its history. The first literary magazine in Argentina wasLa Aljaba, created in 1830, which was also one of the first magazines directed by women and for women in the world.[9] In 1837,Juan Bautista Alberdi, the main thinker behind theConstitution of Argentina, created his literary magazine,La Moda. Several members of the1837 Generation, (which was the movement that brought new artistic tendencies from Europe such asRomanticism andpolitical liberalism to Argentina), published their writings in it.
In 1924,Modernist writers createdMartín Fierro (named afterJosé Hernandez'sepic poem), it was key for the development of the Argentineavant-garde, greatly influenced byultraism. Many of the most important writers of the early 20th century in Argentina published their writings inMartín Fierro, such asOliverio Girondo,Victoria Ocampo,Ricardo Güiraldes,Leopoldo Marechal, and most importantly,Jorge Luis Borges.[10] In 1931, The former members ofMartín Fierro createdSur, the most relevant Argentine authors published their writings there, such asBorges,Adolfo Bioy Casares,Ernesto Sábato, but also prominent writers from other countries, such asGabriel García Márquez,Pablo Neruda andOctavio Paz. TheSur magazine shared the same artistic values of its predecessor, and was more relevant politically, being strongly opposed toPeronism andNazism. Many of the best stories by Borges, such asEl Aleph,Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius andThe Circular Ruins, were originally published inSur.
In 1953, Ismael Viñas createdContorno, a disruptive magazine affiliated with communism and existentialism, in which writerDavid Viñas, sociologistJuan José Sebreli and philosopherLeón Rozitchner, among others, published their writings.
In 1988Babel. Revista de libros was created byMartín Caparrós and Jorge Dorio. it sought to recover diverse literary voices and push experimental forms after thelast Argentine dictatorship.
In the 21st century, while print magazines have declined, online literary magazines, such asRevista Ñ thrive.
SwiftCurrent, created in 1984, was the first online literary magazine. It functioned as more of a database of literary works than a literary publication.[11] In 1995, theMississippi Review was the first large literary magazine to launch a fully online issue.[12] By 1998,Fence andTimothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern were published and quickly gained an audience.[13] Around 1996, literary magazines began to appear more regularly online. At first, some writers and readers dismissed online literary magazines as not equal in quality or prestige to their print counterparts, while others said that these were not properly magazines and were insteadezines. Since then, though, many writers and readers have accepted online literary magazines as another step in the evolution of independent literary journals.
There are thousands of other online literary publications and it is difficult to judge the quality and overall impact of this relatively new publishing medium.[14]
Little magazines, or "small magazines", are literary magazines that often publishexperimental literature and the non-conformist writings of relatively unknown writers. Typically they had small readership, were financially uncertain or non-commercial, were irregularly published and showcased artistic innovation.[15]
