Various - Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 1. No 1, June 1850

The Publishers take great pleasure in presenting herewith the first volume of the New Monthly Magazine. It was projected and commenced in the belief, that it might be made the means of bringing within the reach of the great mass of the American people, an immense amount of useful and entertaining reading matter, to which, on account of the great number and expense of the books and periodicals in which it originally appears, they have hitherto had no access. The popularity of the work has outstripped their most sanguine expectations. Although but six months have elapsed since it was first announced, it has already attained a regular monthly issue of more than Fifty Thousand Copies, and the rate of its increase is still unchecked. Under these circumstances, the Publishers would consider themselves failing in duty, as well as in gratitude, to the public, if they omitted any exertion within their power to increase its substantial value and its attractiveness. It will be their aim to present, in a style of typography unsurpassed by any similar publication in the world, every thing of general interest and usefulness which the current literature of the times may contain. They will seek, in every article, to combine entertainment with instruction, and to enforce, through channels which attract rather than repel attention and favor, the best and most important lessons of morality and of practical life. They will spare neither labor nor expense in any department of the work; freely lavishing both upon the editorial aid, the pictorial embellishments, the typography, and the general literary resources by which they hope to give the Magazine a popular circulation, unequaled by that of any similar periodical ever published in the world. And they are satisfied that they may appeal with confidence to the present volume, for evidence of the earnestness and fidelity with which they will enter upon the fulfillment of these promises for the future.

Harper's New Monthly Magazine, of which this is the initial number, will be published every month, at the rate of three dollars per annum. Each number will contain as great an amount and variety of reading matter, and at least as many pictorial illustrations, and will be published in the same general style, as the present.

The design of the Publishers, in issuing this work, is to place within the reach of the great mass of the American people the unbounded treasures of the Periodical Literature of the present day. Periodicals enlist and absorb much of the literary talent, the creative genius, the scholarly accomplishment of the present age. The best writers, in all departments and in every nation, devote themselves mainly to the Reviews, Magazines, or Newspapers of the day. And it is through their pages that the most powerful historical Essays, the most elaborate critical Disquisitions, the most eloquent delineations of Manners and of Nature, the highest Poetry and the most brilliant Wit, have, within the last ten years, found their way to the public eye and the public heart.

This devotion to Periodical writing is rapidly increasing. The leading authors of Great Britain and of France, as well as of the United States, are regular and constant contributors to the Periodicals of their several countries. The leading statesmen of France have been for years the leading writers in her journals. Lamartine has just become the editor of a newspaper. Dickens has just established a weekly journal of his own, through which he is giving to the world some of the most exquisite and delightful creations that ever came from his magic pen. Alison writes constantly for Blackwood. Lever is enlisted in the Dublin University Magazine. Bulwer and Croly publish their greatest and most brilliant novels first in the pages of the Monthly Magazines of England and of Scotland. Macaulay, the greatest of living Essayists and Historians, has enriched the Edinburgh Review with volumes of the most magnificent productions of English Literature. And so it is with all the living authors of England. The ablest and the best of their productions are to be found in Magazines. The wealth and freshness of the Literature of the Nineteenth Century are embodied in the pages of its Periodicals.

The Weekly and Daily Journals of England, France, and America, moreover, abound in the most brilliant contributions in every department of intellectual effort. The current of Political Events, in an age of unexampled political activity, can be traced only through their columns. Scientific discovery, Mechanical inventions, the creations of Fine Art, the Orations of Statesmen, all the varied intellectual movements of this most stirring and productive age, find their only record upon these multiplied and ephemeral pages.

It is obviously impossible that all these sources of instruction and of interest should be accessible to any considerable number even of the reading public, much less that the great mass of the people of this country should have any opportunity of becoming familiar with them. They are scattered through scores and hundreds of magazines and journals, intermingled with much that is of merely local and transient interest, and are thus hopelessly excluded from the knowledge and the reach of readers at large.

The Publishers of the New Monthly Magazine intend to remedy this evil, and to place every thing of the Periodical Literature of the day, which has permanent value and commanding interest, in the hands of all who have the slightest desire to become acquainted with it. Each number will contain 144 octavo pages, in double columns: the volumes of a single year, therefore, will present nearly two thousand pages of the choicest and most attractive of the Miscellaneous Literature of the Age. The Magazine will transfer to its pages as rapidly as they may be issued all the continuous tales of Dickens, Bulwer, Croly, Lever, Warren, and other distinguished contributors to British Periodicals: articles of commanding interest from all the leading Quarterly Reviews of both Great Britain and the United States: Critical Notices of the current publications of the day: Speeches and Addresses of distinguished men upon topics of universal interest and importance: Notices of Scientific discoveries, of the progress and fruits of antiquarian research, of mechanical inventions, of incidents of travel and exploration, and generally of all the events in Science, Literature, and Art in which the people at large have any interest. Constant and special regard will be had to such articles as relate to the Economy of Social and Domestic Life, or tend to promote in any way the education, advancement, and well-being of those who are engaged in any department of productive activity. A carefully prepared Fashion Plate, and other pictorial illustrations, will also accompany each number.

The Magazine is not intended exclusively for any class of readers, or for any kind of reading. The Publishers have at their command the exhaustless resources of current Periodical Literature in all its departments. They have the aid of Editors in whom both they and the public have long since learned to repose full and implicit confidence. They have no doubt that, by a careful, industrious, and intelligent use of these appliances, they can present a Monthly Compendium of the periodical productions of the day which no one who has the slightest relish for miscellaneous reading, or the slightest desire to keep himself informed of the progress and results of the literary genius of his own age, would willingly be without. And they intend to publish it at so low a rate, and to give to it a value so much beyond its price, that it shall make its way into the hands or the family circle of every intelligent citizen of the United States.