SOURCE: Mott, Frank Luther. “Literary Types and Judgments” and “Literary Phases of Postbellum Magazines.” In A History of American Magazines: 1850-1865, pp. 157-87; 223-74. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938.

In the following excerpts, Mott evaluates the literature and literary criticism that appeared in American magazines from 1850 through the 1880s.

Literary Types and Judgments

“Next to that of Germany, the reading circle of the United States is the most extensive in the world,” asserted the editor of Putnam's Monthly in 1856. “There are more writers in France, and better writing in England, no doubt, than among ourselves; but these nations cannot compare with us in the number of intelligent readers.”¹ Norton's Literary Gazette gave statistics showing the publication of about a thousand books in the United States in 1852, one-third of them reprints—a figure doubled by 1855 and quadrupled by 1862. Lower prices for good books had much to do with this increase...