The New World

The New World was one of the “mammoth” weeklies of the 1840's, so called because its pages were sometimes more than four feet long and eleven columns wide. A quarto edition was also published. Editors Park Benjamin and Rufus Wilmot Griswold, who had previously served as editors of a rival paper, the Brother Jonathan, upset the book publishers by reprinting complete novels as “extras.” Their messengers would meet the incoming steamships in order to capture the earliest copies of the new English serials, which were then pirated in its pages.

They serialized The Wandering Jew, translated by Henry William Herbert, in 1844 Volume IX No. 6. This also contained an article Mesmeric Revelation by Edgar Allan Poe.

An ad under the heading ANOTHER GREAT GERMAN ROMANCE, is The Jesuit, A Historical Romance by C. Spindler, author of “The Jew” “The Invalide” etc. Another for the The Invalide; or, Pictures of the French Revolution, by C. Spindler, translated from the German by Dr. Herbe and James Mackay says; “The Invalide is written with wonderful power, and the numerous and thrilling incidents are wrought out with infinite skill, combining all the leading events of the French revolution, from the outbreak at Versailles to the Battle of Waterloo, with the charms and exciting interest of the most captivating romance.”

An earlier serial in Volume II No. 10, November of 1842 was Franklin Evans; or, The Inebriate, a Tale of the Times, by Walter Whitman, a temperance tale. This was Walt Whitman.

“I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.”

***

The New World, Vol. 1, no. 1 (Oct. 26, 1839) -- Folio Edition, the folio edition, begun in Oct. 1839, contained the same articles as the quarto, except for additional advertisements and a few news items. New York: Jonas Winchester.

The New World, Vol. 1, no. 1 (June 6, 1840) -- Ceased with v. 10 (May 10, 1845) Quarto, NY: Jonas Winchester.