St. Nicholas and Mary Mapes Dodge: The Legacy of a Children's Magazine Editor, 1873-1905 - Paperback

by Susan R. Gannon (Editor), Suzanne Rahn (Editor), Ruth Anne Thompson (Editor)

St. Nicholas has been called the best children's magazine ever published, particularly during the tenure of its founding editor, Mary Mapes Dodge. From 1873 to 1905, Dodge worked to create what she called a "pleasure ground" for children--a magazine that would have great impact on several generations of children. The list of authors who wrote for her includes Louisa May Alcott, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Rudyard Kipling, Theodore Roosevelt, and Mark Twain. The quality of the magazine's illustration was equally high. The magazine was also the launching pad for a new generation of authors and artists, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, E.B. White, Jack London, and Eudora Welty.

This anthology of critical writing on St. Nicholas includes some of the most influential articles already published and newly commissioned essays on a variety of subjects, including the impact of the St. Nicholas league, the utopian thrust of the magazine's fiction, and the story of the long and productive literary partnership between Dodgeand Alcott. Essays also analyze Dodge's relationship with her readers, her editorial practice, the illustrations, American family life as seen by young British readers, war and military life, advertising, and the middle-class preoccupation with "change of fortune" tales. The work places St. Nicholas in American cultural history, and analyzes how it both influenced and was influenced over thirty years. Essential documentary material presently unpublished or inaccessible and illustrations from the magazine are also included.

Author Biography

Susan R. Gannon is professor emeritus of English and Communications at Pace University in Pleasantville, New York. She lives in Somers, New York. Suzanne Rahn is associate professor at Pacific Lutheran University, and lives in Seattle, Washington. Ruth Anne Thompson is professor emeritus of English at Pace University. She lives in Madison, Connecticut.