Harper’s New Monthly Magazine launched in 1850 and quickly became one of the most widely read and influential periodicals in America, publishing fiction, travel writing, historical essays, biography, and commentary for a broad middle-class readership. This July 1851 issue captures the magazine in its first year, at a moment when American literary and intellectual culture was reaching a remarkable peak of creativity and ambition.
Individual issues of Victorian magazines are primary sources for the cultural history of their moment, reflecting the tastes, preoccupations, and debates of the reading public. Download this free EPUB for a window into American cultural life at the midpoint of the nineteenth century.