Something New on the Way

Shortly, a database with more than 5000 images that encompasses my entire collection will be online and searchable. A preliminary version that includes links to my ebooks and other interesting information can be found at www.thegreatamericanmagazine.com .

answer to question

Will the person who had a question concerning my oil post please re-contact me. your question was accidentally deleted

thanks

A Twenty Year Mystery Solved!

A few years ago I posted a magazine that I believed contained a previously unknown essay by Elizabeth Barret Browning.

The basis for this was that the magazine in was in Titan, was not able to be located in any source and also due to the fact that it had been separated from its original wrappers, despite internal evidence that it was published somewhere in the Mississippi valley. My investigation led to conversations with various literary and publishing authorities in both St. Louis and New Orleans, but, alas, to no avail. Conversations with Browning authorities likewise were fruitless.

So where else could the mystery be solved? In the Lomazow collection of American periodicals!Recently going over a stack of uncatalogued issues I came across the first issue of Cresent Monthly, published in New Orleans in 1866.

A perusal of the contents and typography immediately reminded me of Titan and, indeed, a comparison yields the inevitable conclusion that the publisher was one in the same!

It is now quite clear that Titan was published in New Orleans and, to this point, my copy remains the only one known. I own a number of unique periodicals but this one ranks as the most important since it contains a heretofore unknown work of a major American author. Mr Evelyn published Titan in 1859 and, like many others. suspended his operations during the Civil War. In 1866, he started anew with Crescent Monthly.

Just another reason why collecting magazines over the previous three decades has been such a source of pleasure to this blogger.

Periodically yours,

SL

A Great Newsstand Photo. NYC June 1953

I love to collect old photos of newsstands. I just got back from the New Jersey Antiquarian Bookfair where I purchased this one.




The dealer was unable to date it but by looking at the magazines in the picture, especially TV Fan in the upper right hand corner, the date is June 1953. Here's the magazine, which happens to be the first issue.




The location is probably at the north end of Columbus Circle, with Central Park West to the left of the newstand. Enjoy a great piece of NYC magazine history!
Periodically,

SL

LIFE Magazine at 75

Today is the seventy-fifth anniversary of an important day in magazine history- the first publication of the news-magazine incarnation of LIFE (see my post "The Origin of Life" for history of the prior title). Ever since the iconic image of the Fort Peck Dam by Margaret Bourke-White appeared on the first issue LIFE has been an important part of the documentary history of our country. Though it ceased weekly publication in 1972, Henry Luce's magnum opus continues to be a prime measure of how photo-journalism is defined.

I thought I'd share the first three pages of the prospectus of the magazine so you might see just how well it succeeded.

Since this blog is largely devoted to collecting, I also include (again) the most valuable single issue of LIFE, one that was never actually circulated. The famous Staubach issue was on the presses at the news of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It was never circulated and only a few souvenir copies (perhaps a few dozen at best) were retained.

Happy thanksgiving to all!

Remembering Steve Jobs 1955-2011. A Magazine Tribute.

The recent passing of the twenty-first century Thomas Edison has spurred a reprise of my January 2009 post about computer magazines. Job's marketing genius is easily seen in both the magazines and internet link provided.



Thanks again to my computer magazine expert David Leishman, who provided some of the images, and my girlfriend Katherine for keeping me vigilant about keeping this blog updated.



My home is in West Orange, New Jersey, where many of the manifestations of Edison's genius came to fruition.

My apologies for the inconvenience of clicking below to view the previous post.

http://magazinehistory.blogspot.com/search?q=computer+magazines

Magazine Collection For Sale

After thirty-five years of collecting, it is now time to find an appropriate home for my collection, considered to be the finest in private hands. Thousands of exquisitely rare and historically important items.

The collection contains virtually every major magazine highlight ever published from the eighteenth century to the present and covers virtually every topic- literature, politics, technology (TV, Radio, Movies, Aviation etc). It also includes by far the largest collection of first issue pulp magazines (over 850) in existence. Any institution or individual that acquires it will immediately become one of the leading repositories of American popular culture. All of the posts from this blog have been done using material from the collection and the scope can be easily surmised by a review.

There are hundreds of feet of shelves occupied by bound volumes and individual issues. The collection fills two large rooms of my home.

Serious inquiries only, we are talking a price (on request) well into seven figures. Combination sale/donation considered.

This is the real deal. An unreproducible repository of major importance. Sold only as a whole.

please respond to lomazow@comcast.net.

Illustrated catalog on request.

Two More Candidates for Rarest Norman Rockwell Cover

My scanner has been replaced and additional images have been added to the previous post on cooking magazines.

Norman Rockwell is the gift that keeps on giving!

I just purchased this cover on ebay for a relative bargain of $110. I've never owned a copy but is in the Moffatt catalogue as C181. The U.S.N.R.F. was used on a Post and Life cover as well.

Inside this very rare magazine I was pleasantly surprosed to find a photograph and interview with my other obsession Franklin D. Roosevelt, when he was Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

The next cover, on a 1923 Maclean's, a Canadian magazine, is not in Moffatt. I just ran into an old friend and avid Rockwell enthusiast Phil Sperry, who told me he has one as well. From the models and style, the image was probably painted years earlier, circa 1916 or 1917. It may have been a previously rejected Post cover that Rockwell resubmitted, something he did regularly.

Cooking and Restaurant Magazines

This entry began with a call from my old friend and bookseller par excellance, Rusty Mott of Sheffield Massachusetts, offering me a broken run of a rare cooking magazine The Table.

Rusty told me that it was the second cooking magazine ever published and the volume of five of the eight issues had the original wrappers bound in. The price was right; I hadn't acquired much new lately so here it is.

Further research indicates that there are five institutional holdings, only two of which are complete (University of Minnesota and The Library of Congress). The editor was the pseudonymous Barry Gray, in actuality Robert Barry Coffin (1826–1886),an American journalist, poet, and writerof relatively minor importance. This appears to be his only foray into magazine publishing.

I then called the dealer who sold Rusty the volume, the very pleasant and knowledgable Dan Rabelais of Rabelais Books of Portland Maine, who told me that the best research on early cooking magazines appears in an article by Janet Longone of the great Clements Library at the University if Michigan in a recent magazine Gastronomia. Mr Rablelais was a general bookdealer who now specializes in cookbooks and the like.

Dan also told me that Janet identified the first cooking magazine that has a "weird name". This rung a bell and when I asked him if it was Mystery of Life, he believed that that was it. In fact I had acquired a copy in 1997 for $100 from Bob Seymour of Colebrook Book Barn, not really knowing much about it other than that I didn't have it and it was a first issue in wrappers. I had catalogued it in my addendum as appearing in 1868 and indeed containing recipes and advertisements for food related items, published by Alfred Berney. I could not find another copy in Union List of Serials but now when I just checked Berney's Mystery of Life, one holding shows up at New York Public Library. It was intended as a quarterly but there is no evidence a second issue was ever published. My wrappers are slightly different than that illustrated in Janet Longone's article. Perhaps she used the copy from NYPL.

I am proud to say It would therefore appear that my collection is the only one in the world with copies of both of these periodical gems, however serendipitously they were acquired!

While I'm on the subject of cooking magazines, I thought I'd add one more related item from my collection, a wonderful magazine from 1886 entitled Retaurateur. This wonderful periodical contains articles and copious advertising about restaurants and, most interestingly to me, an extensive pricelist of food items, inluding such present day staples as Bass Ale and Guinness' Stout! Ths magazine is not in ULS and may be the first of its kind. I've never seen another issue and have no idea how long it lasted.

You may find the above a little boring, but I continue to find it all quite fascinating.

Periodically yours,

Steven Lomazow, M.D.

100,000th hit!

Since this blog began on January 1, 2008, today we have our 100,000th hit!

Thanks to all of my readers.