The Short Story and the Early Magazine

doi:10.1017/9781009292863.005

Chapter 2 - The Short Story and the Early Magazine

from Part I - Contexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 May 2023

Jared Gardner

Edited by

Michael J. Collins and

Gavin Jones

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Michael J. Collins: Affiliation:
King's College London
Gavin Jones: Affiliation:
Stanford University

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Summary

This chapter explores the magazine culture of late colonial and early national America in order to recover the crucial role played by the short story in the periodical’s overburdened ambition to bring “cultural capital” across the Atlantic. Looking at these magazines we find the short story in unlikely places and forms – embedded within other fictions or non-fiction narratives, serialized in relationship to prized illustrations, or disguised as the “serial essay.” But while the print economy of the magazine would change dramatically by the 1840s and 1850s, resulting in the rise of the more familiar and recognizable periodical short story, the magazine short story has been there virtually from the beginning.

Keywords

magazines newspapers cultural capital serialization literary market tale media

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Companion to the American Short Story , pp. 31 - 45

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009292863.005 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2023

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References

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