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Harper’s Weekly

About This Item

  • Title: Harper’s Weekly
  • Date: 30 October 1857
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.01211
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 30 October 1857: 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: Thara Michaelis Francesca Boston Jason Stacy Stephanie Blalock Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Harper’s Weekly." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 16 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.01211.xml (TEI)
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HARPER'S WEEKLY1

HARPER’S WEEKLY is profuse with rare illustrations and instructive and entertaining reading matter. Each issue shows the falsity of the old cry, that we could not in America produce a pictorial and literary weekly. Many attempted it, and failed. The Harpers embraced success with their first number. They have made arrangements with Mr. Thackeray,2 at an expense of $2000, for advance sheets of his long-expected story “The Virginians.” The publication will be commenced in the Magazine for December, and will attract the attention of all classes of readers.

Notes:

1.  [back]

2. William Thackeray (1811–1863) was an English satirical author and illustrator. Whitman summarized his assessment of Thackery when asked by Horace Traubel late in life as follows: "I have read Vanity Fair and liked it: it seemed to me a considerable story of its kind—to have its own peculiar value. But Thackeray as a whole did not cast his sinker very deep though he's none the worse for that" (With Walt Whitman in Camden, Monday, October 29, 1888). [back]

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