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Reference
>
Cambridge History
>
Early National Literature, Part II; Later National Literature, Part I
>
Magazines, Annuals, and Gift-books, 17831850
>
The Dial
New England;
The North American Review
New York:
The Knickerbocker Magazine; The Knickerbocker Gallery
CONTENTS
·
VOLUME CONTENTS
·
INDEX OF ALL CHAPTERS
·
BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes
(190721).
VOLUME XVI. Early National Literature, Part II; Later National Literature, Part I.
XX.
Magazines, Annuals, and Gift-books, 17831850
.
§ 10.
The Dial
.
The most picturesque of the Boston periodicals of the time was
The Dial,
published quarterly by a group of New England Transcendentalists from 1840 to 1844. Such an organ of the new thought had long been talked of, and as early as 1835 Emerson had proposed to Carlyle that the latter come to America and act as editor. It was not until July, 1840, however, that the first number of
The Dial
appeared, with Margaret Fuller as editor, and Emerson, Alcott, and Thoreau among the contributors. The magazine was never financially successful, the smallness of its subscription list being indicated by the rarity of complete sets today. Margaret Fuller, after serving gratuitously for two years, reluctantly resigned the editorship, and Emerson as reluctantly took it up, noting in his diary: I wish it to live, but I do not wish to be its life. Neither do I like to put it into the hands of the Humanity and Reform Men, because they trample on letters and poetry; nor in the hands of the scholars, for they are dead and dry. After spending much time and some money Emerson too felt forced to abandon the undertaking, and
The Dial
came to an end with the close of the fourth volume. Among contributors other than those already noted were C. P. Cranch, George Ripley, William H. Channing, William Ellery Channing, Theodore Parker, James Freeman Clarke, James Russell Lowell, Charles A. Dana, and Jones Very. In its own day
The Dial
was regarded reverently by a few, but by the great mass of readers it was ignored or taken as a joke. A later generation still finds many things in its pages amusing but has come to recognize it as the best single exponent of New England Transcendentalism, and of the peculiar aspects of culture that accompanied that movement.
6
12
Although
The Dial
was unique, several earlier and later Boston magazines appealed to much the same constituency. In 1838 the Reverend Orestes A. Brownson began to issue
The Boston Quarterly Review,
and the next year he urged the Transcendentalists to contribute to his journal rather than to found
The Dial.
After five years
The Boston Quarterly Review
was merged with
The Democratic Review
of New York. A more important periodical was
Brownsons Quarterly Review,
founded in 1844 after the editor had been converted to the Roman Catholic faith. An immediate successor of
The Dial
was
The Harbinger,
established in 1845 by the members of the Brook Farm community as an organ of Fourierism. From 1847 to 1850 the Reverend Theodore Parker, one of the most virile of the Transcendental group, conducted
The Massachusetts Quarterly Review,
which he humorously characterized as
The Dial
with a beard.
13
Note 6
. See also Book II, Chap.
VIII.
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CONTENTS
·
VOLUME CONTENTS
·
INDEX OF ALL CHAPTERS
·
BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
New England;
The North American Review
New York:
The Knickerbocker Magazine; The Knickerbocker Gallery
Shakespeare
·
Bible
·
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·
Anatomy
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