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[Blackwood’s Magazine for March]

About This Item

  • Title: [Blackwood’s Magazine for March]
  • Date: 5 April 1858
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.00714
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 5 April 1858: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Liam Roush Kaylen Michaelis Brandi Faulkner Stefan Schöberlein Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "[Blackwood’s Magazine for March]." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 16 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.00714.xml (TEI)
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BLACKWOOD’S MAGAZINE1 for March, has laid on our table for some days unnoticed. The number is fully equal to Old Ebony’s preeminent reputation. An article on “Our Convicts,” is a thoughtful and deliberate essay on the punishment of crime. “Food and Drink” is the title of an instructive paper on dietary matters, in which Liebig2 is severely taken to task for some of the theories which his name has given weight to. Among the other articles are—“A few more words from John Company to John Bull;” “What will he do with it?” by Bulwer3; “Curiosities of Natural History,” &c., &c. Published by Leonard Scott4 & Co., Fulton street, New York. For sale at Davis’s.

Notes:

1. Blackwood's Magazine, or Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, was a monthly magazine created by William Blackwood in 1817. Though it was published in Scotland it quickly attracted a wide readership in Great Britain and the U.S., especially for its fiction offerings. For more information, see David Finkelstein, The House of Blackwood: Author-Publisher Relations in the Victorian Age? (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002). [back]

2. Dr. Justus Freiherr von Liebig (1803–1873) was a German organic chemist, whose work had a profound influence on Whitman, who positively reviewed Liebig's work and incorporated lessons from it into his poetry. For more information, see John T. Matteson, "Liebig, Justus (1803–1873)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).  [back]

3. Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803–1873), was an English writer and politician. His novel The Caxtons: A Family Picture (1849) was a breakout hit at the time. Whitman once accused Lytton of plagiarizing a book titled Zicci, stating it was the exact same as the novel Zanoni. Both novels, however, were written by Lytton. Whitman described the controversy in a number of Aurora editorials. See "The Great Bamboozle!—A Plot Discovered!" (March 28, 1842), and "More Humbug" (April 4, 1842). [back]

4. Leonard Scott & Co. was a New York publishing company created by Leonard Scott (1810–1895) that focused on reprinting British magazines. [back]

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