SOURCE: Tomlinson, David. “Simms's Monthly Magazine: the Southern and Western Monthly Magazine and Review.” The Southern Literary Journal 8, no. 1 (fall 1975): 95-125.

In the following essay, Tomlinson recounts the editorial agenda and brief publication history of Simm's Monthly Magazine, edited by the well-known southern writer William Gilmore Simms.

I.

Early in November 1844, William Gilmore Simms accepted the editorship of a proposed new magazine from Burges and James, the Charleston publishers. In spite of his misgivings about the name the owners had chosen for the periodical—“Simms's Southern Monthly”—the editor was only able to get them to change the title to a more unwieldly double one by the time the first issue appeared in mid-January 1845: Simms's Monthly Magazine: The Southern and Western Monthly Magazine and Review. Even the awkwardness of the title cannot ultimately obscure the rather sophisticated contents of the publication, however; and the enthusiasm reflected in the...