History
The Southern Literary Messenger first appeared in August 1834 with Thomas Willis White as publisher. In the inaugural issue Willis stated that his aim was "to stimulate the pride and genius of the south, and awaken from its long slumber the literary exertion of this portion of our country." This was in reference to the fact that at the time most magazines were published in Boston, New York and Philadelphia.
Edgar Allan Poe served as an editor for a time (see below). After his departure, White resumed editorial duties before hiring Lieutenant Matthew Fontaine Maury USN as editor from 1840 to 1843. Upon White's death in 1843, Benjamin Blake Minor served as editor and publisher from August 1843 to October 1847.
Writing contributions to the journal, as well as a loss of subscriptions, led to its cancellation in June 1864. As was explained editorially in that issue, the press in Richmond (and the town in general) had been thrown into considerable disarray due to the American Civil War.
Read more about this topic: Southern Literary Messenger
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Postmodernism is, almost by definition, a transitional cusp of social, cultural, economic and ideological history when modernism’s high-minded principles and preoccupations have ceased to function, but before they have been replaced with a totally new system of values. It represents a moment of suspension before the batteries are recharged for the new millennium, an acknowledgment that preceding the future is a strange and hybrid interregnum that might be called the last gasp of the past.”
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. Sunday Times: Books (London, April 21, 1991)
“... the history of the race, from infancy through its stages of barbarism, heathenism, civilization, and Christianity, is a process of suffering, as the lower principles of humanity are gradually subjected to the higher.”
—Catherine E. Beecher (1800–1878)
“A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)