Middletown transcript., 1882-01-13
THE CENTURY AND ST. NICHOLAS.
THEIR RECENT GROWTH IN
ENnT

ENGLAND.
The Century Magazine may now be
considered fully started on its way
under the new name, and with the
forthcoming MidWinter number, which
will have the new cover design by
Elihu Vedder, the Scribner's Month
ly'' is to be dropped as subtitle. Its
issues, since the change was made,
have been commended by the press
everywhere as of rare beauty and IN
terest. The November number was
said to be " the most able and valuable
publication ever put forth in magazine
form. Another paper pronounced 1t
+" unquestionably the most brilliant and
striking, as it is the largest and most
sumptuous, of anything yet known IN
American or European periodical
literature = The Springfield Republt-
can called the December number, for
personal portraiture and biography, the
richest single issue ever made by a
magazine. y The N. Y. Observer con-
siders the January Century San ideal
NUMBER The Graphic IN. W re-
Gently said: "Take it all in all, The
Centatrg is already a better magazine
than Scribner'S ever Was," and this
opinion seems universal. The increased
excellence is not due to the change of
name =; it is only the natural growth OF
the magazine, made more conspicuous
by the change.
With this growing excellence has
come an increased sale. The average
edition of the numbers of the last two
volumes of Scribner's Monthly was
120. 900: the average edition Of the first
four numbers of The Celltatry is nearly
$4,000. In England, 20,500 copies Of
November were sold, against an aver
age of 1920 for the twelve months
preceding, and the sale of that number
still continues there as well as here.
In a recent issue Of the D1antrieS (Scot-
land) Advertiser, the rapid progress
made by The Century among the read
ing public of the United Kingdom was
ascribed to the Angol-SaXon spirit, as
distinguished from the purely British
or the purely American, that pervades
its pages; it is much more American
than it is British, but it is more Angol
Saxon than either, and more repre-
sentative Of the race than of any of the
various nationalities into which it has
separated"
st. Nicholas has grown in England,
from a circulation of 1900 copies a
year ago. to regular circulation now
of 5000 to 10000 monthly. 1t is not
often that the London Times goes out
Of its way to compliment children's
magazines, and American ones at that,
but its issue of December 90, 1881, con-
tained the following good words about
the last bound volumes of st. Nicholas !:
There is an old song which sings
how a certain venerable man delighted
to pass the evening Of his days in in
itiating his grandchild in the exhil-
arating game Of draughts, and how, so
well did the lad profit by his instruc-
tion, that at last the old man was
beaten by the boy In looking over
the two parts of st. Nicholas, this old
song has come back to us. Certainly
the producers of such literature for our
own boys and girls must look to their
laurels. Both in the letterpress and
the engravings these two volumes seem
to us Though the admission touch our
vanity or our patriotism, call it by
which name we will, something closely
above anything we produce in the same
line. The letterpress, while containing
quite as large a power Of attraction for
young fancies, is so much more idea'd,
50 much less commonplace, altogether
of a higher literary style than the
average production of our ANIMALS of
the same class. And the pictures are
often works of real art, not only as
engravings, but as compositions of
original design"