Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. Xi.—april, 1851—vol. II.

This is America in 1851, mid-century and hungry for a literature of its own. Harper's New Monthly Magazine stands as the preeminent literary periodical of its age, and this April issue opens with a tribute to Washington Irving, arguably the first American writer to achieve international fame. Here is a snapshot of what the nation's educated class was reading and thinking: Irving's graceful histories, his wry Knickerbocker humor, essays on contemporary events, and poetry that wrestled with America's accelerating identity. The magazine captures a cultural moment when American writers were actively constructing a national literary tradition, still young enough to revere its founding fathers of letters, ambitious enough to believe they might surpass them. For historians of American literature, this is a primary source of considerable value, a curated window into the tastes, values, and intellectual preoccupations of pre-Civil War America.