Putnam's Monthly Magazine of American Literature, Science, and Art vol. 1 Jan. to June 1853

New York: G.P. Putnam & Co, 1853. Hardcover. Very Good. iv, 703, [1] p., 1 leaf of a plate showing the residence of J.P. Kennedy, Ellicott's Mills, Md., 1 double-page wood-engraved view of New York City: in-text illustrations, map; 24 cm. Contemporary half calf with marbled paper over boards. Six spine compartments between raised bands; gilt-stamped title in second compartment: "Putnam's Magazine vol. 1." All page edges red. Marbled endpapers. Edited and with contributions by Charles Frederick Briggs, George William Curtis and Parke Godwin. George Putnam sought to focus on American writers and American literature in the magazine he established in 1853. This volume includes first appearance of two poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow -- The Warden of the Cinque Ports, and Galgano, the latter a verse translation of a story from Il Pecorone by Giovanni Fiorentino; The Fountain of Youth by James Russell Lowell; Old Ironsides by James Fenimore Cooper; Ornithomanes by Henry William Herbert; The Living Corpse, a Poe-inspired story by the suicidal William North; and three parts of Henry David Thoreau's Excursion to Canada (published, with additonal material, in 1866 as A Yankee in Canada). The focus on American writers includes Briggs' reflections on the popularity of Uncle Tom's Cabin in Uncle Tomitudes; Fitz-James O'Brien in Our Young Authors on Herman Melville; and The Student Life of Daniel Webster by Edwin D. Sanborn. This volume also includes both Henry James, Sr.'s declaration of the inferiority of women in his Woman and the "Woman's Movement," and contributions by women writers--Virginia in a Novel Form by Mrs. Hicks (Rebecca Brodnax Hicks (1823-1870)), who published The Kaleidoscope, a weekly newspaper in Petersburg, Va.; Mary Spears by Elizabeth F. Ellet (1818-1877), author of The Women of the American Revolution; and Midnight Sun by Fredrika Bremer. It features articles about Cuba, Japan, and Honolulu; the occult (Modern "Spiritualism" by Horace Greeley); Ericsson's caloric ship; New York City in Clarence Cook's series New-York Daguerreotyped and in The Benevolent Institutions of New-York by Charles Loring Brace. It also includes the popular Have We a Bourbon Among Us? and The Bourbon Question by Charles H. Hanson, who argued that the Rev. Eleazar Williams, a missionary to the Indians, was actually the dauphin, Charles Louis, son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. In Very Good Condition: rubbed, most heavily at corners, but solid; occasional light foxing; a few sections of pages have browned, but most have not; clean and tight.