St Nicholas Magazine
Entry updated 12 August 2018. Tagged: Publication.
US magazine for boys and girls, published by Scribner, later by Century Co, then by American Education Press. Founded by Rosewell Smith and edited by Mary Mapes Dodge 1873-1905, William Fayal Clarke 1905-1927, and others. Assistant editors included Frank R Stockton 1873-1881 and Tudor Jenks 1887-1902. It appeared monthly November 1873-May 1930 as St. Nicholas, then as St Nicholas Magazine from June 1930 until its demise in June 1943. The format was large square octavo, becoming quarto from 1926.
St Nicholas Magazine maintained a high literary standard and kept its circulation at 70,000 for many years. Numerous fantasy stories appeared within its pages, notably by Stockton, John Kendrick Bangs and Rudyard Kipling, ranging in content from fairy-tales to sf such as Clement Fezandié's Through the Earth (1898; rev 1898) and Stockton's "The Tricycle of the Future" (May 1885). Aimed at a more educated and middle-class market than the dime novels (see Dime-Novel SF), St Nicholas Magazine was undoubtedly enjoyed by children to whom the Frank Reade Library was out of reach (through parental veto), and thus has some bearing on the History of SF. [JE]
further reading
- Edmund Lester Pearson. Books in Black or Red (New York: Macmillan, 1923) [nonfiction: hb/]
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