Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/818

 802 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

cases. Of the first generation we still have with us only the Little Journeys (December, 1894), now in its second form; Bibelot (January, 1895); Philis- tine (June, 1895) ; and the Philosopher (January, 1897), now in its third size.

Many of these bibelots seem to have resulted from the desire of ambi- tious, unknown writers to reach a supposedly large waiting public, which could not be reached through the established magazines, either because the author could not get his manuscript accepted, or because the readers he wished to reach were not among the subscribers to the older monthlies and quarter- lies. This is but our humble guess as to cause of birth; but lack of support, or unwillingness on the part of the editor to be the only support, caused the untimely (?) death of the majority. In 1898 the race had almost all died off.

The Chap-Book, in a valedictory review of its career and influence, said:

Its habits of free speech produced a curious movement among the young writers of the country. There was scarcely a village or town which did not have its little individualistic pamphlet frankly imitating the form and tone of the Chap-Book.

Many moves toward getting the Chap-Book out of the class of ephemerals and into that of magazines firmly established on a sound business basis were made by Mr. Stone after settling down to his life-work as a publisher in Chicago. One such, made January 15, 1897, was the abandonment of its small form, for the regulation 7^ X424 mcn magazine size. This change robbed the magazine of an appearance which had previously attracted attention to it when it was unique, and also proclaimed the fact that the proprietor was laying more emphasis on the commercialization than on the editing of the periodical. This change did no't help sales and circulation. Furthermore, by this time the Chap-Book had said so many scorching things about books brought out by every leading publishing house in America that the publishers, from whom such a journal, containing liter- ary critiques, should naturally have received its principal adver- tising patronage, tabooed it. As a bid for advertisements from general magazine advertisers, still another experimental change in form was made, February 15, 1898. The pages were en- larged to the 12X8^2 inch illustrated weekly size, and extra