Beadle's Monthly

PERHAPS the highest class magazine attempted by Beadle was Beadle's Monthly. It was of about the same size as The Home but covered a much broader field. It was apparently planned to compete with Harper's Monthly, and was of much the same character in size, illustration, and reading matter. The first number actually appeared December 16, 1865,⁽¹⁾ although it was dated January, 1866, and thereafter approximately on the 20th of each month preceding the date of issue. The magazine was an octavo, 9 ½ by 6 inches, and contained 96 or 98 double-column pages with many woodcut illustrations. The wrappers were salmon or dull brick red, and were embellished, in the first 24 numbers, by an engraving of a one-inch globe. The cover design was changed on the first number of volume III, and the new design (Fig. 151), remained until the end. People apparently were not willing to associate the name of Beadle with high class literature — more likely not willing to associate his productions with any price greater than ten cents — so the magazine languished and finally died at the end of the third volume, June, 1867. The journal compared very favorably with Harper's Monthly, and there seems no logical reason why it should have failed unless it was that Beadle was too impatient to work up a large subscription list — perhaps money was lacking to nurse the magazine along for a number of lean years. The contributors were mostly well-known authors of the period — Harriet E. Spofford, Alfred B. Street, Catharine A. Warfield, Nathan D. Urner, Orville J. Victor, Kate Field, James Franklin Fitts, Frank R. Stockton, Margaret E. Wilmer, the poets Alice Gary, John Neal, E. C. Riggs, A. J. H. Duganne, and others of equal reputation.

In the following list, only the serials are given.

Fig. 151 Beadle's Monthly

Notes

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