Lewis Gaylord Clark's reputation rests largely upon his thirty years as pioneering editor of the Knickerbocker Magazine, or New York Monthly, the first popular literary magazine of the nineteenth century. Founded in 1833 by Samuel Langtree, who sold controlling interest in his thenfailing periodical to Clark and his friend Clement M. Edson, the Knickerbocker attracted first-rate contributors. From 1834 to 1861 Clark screened some of the best contemporary literature of the day. He encouraged and promoted the careers of a host of writers, shaped public reception of their literature by writing and commissioning critical reviews, and expressed his own aesthetic standards through numerous essays published in the periodical's pages.

Captain Eleakim and Lucy Driggs Clark were the parents of Lewis Gaylord Clark and his twin, Willis Gaylord. The brothers were born on 5 October 1808 in the town of Otisco, in Onandaga County, New York. Exceptionally gifted, the boys seemed to have inherited...