INTERNATIONAL WEEKLY MISCELLANY
Of Literature, Art, and Science.
Vol. I. NEW YORK, JULY 1, 1850. No. 1.
CONTENTS: THIS ISSUE
INTRODUCTION.
Of the revolutions of the age, one of the most interesting and important is that which has taken place in the forms of Literature and the Modes of its Publication. Since the establishment of the Edinburgh Review the finest intelligences of the world have been displayed in periodicals. Brougham, Jeffrey, Sidney Smith, Mackintosh, Macaulay, have owed nearly all their best fame to compositions which have appeared first in journals, magazines and reviews; the writers of Tales and Essays have uniformly come before the public by the same means, which have recently served also for the original exhibition of the most elaborate and brilliant Fictions, so that we are now receiving through them by almost every ship from Europe installments of works by Dickens, Bulwer, James, Croly, Lever, Reynolds, Mrs. Marsh, Mrs. Ellis, and indeed nearly all the most eminent contemporary novelists. So complete is the change, that all mind, except the heaviest and least popular, is likely to flow hereafter through the Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Quarterly Miscellanies, which compete with universities, parliaments, churches, and libraries, for ascendency in the government of mankind.
In this country we must keep pace with the movements abroad. It will not answer that we issue literary productions as soon as possible after their completion. The impatient readers demand chapters by chapters, as they are spun from the brain and the heart of the author; facts, upon the instant of their discovery; and suggestions, as they flash from the contact of imagination and reflection.