In their heyday Scribner's magazine (1870-81) and Scribner's Monthly (1887-1942) gave their largely middle-class readership beautiful illustrations and outstanding popular fiction and nonfiction. Scribner's, named for a New York publisher Charles Scribner, was founded by Scribner, Roswell C. Smith, a lawyer, and Dr. Josiah Gilbert Holland, a writer of moral tales and poems scorned by critics but popular with young Americans. From the start the men imbued the magazine with their shared Christian outlook, giving it a tone of religious uplift rare among general interest periodicals. As part of their mission they sought to extend art and literature to readers outside the big cities. Promising that Scribner's would be "profusely illustrated," Holland proposed it as a "democratic form of literature" for people who lacked time for books. After Scribner died in 1871, Holland became the magazine's guiding light. He emphasized a sort of moderate Christianity...