{"id":84296,"date":"2015-04-01T15:45:27","date_gmt":"2015-04-01T19:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=84296"},"modified":"2015-04-01T15:46:57","modified_gmt":"2015-04-01T19:46:57","slug":"juvenilia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/01\/juvenilia\/","title":{"rendered":"Juvenilia"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"stnicholascover2-big\"<\/a>

From the April 1923 issue of St. Nicholas<\/i>.<\/p><\/div>\n

The introduction of\u00a0The Paris Review for Young Readers<\/a><\/em> seems like a good time to think about one of its predecessors:\u00a0St. Nicholas Magazine<\/em><\/a>, which was published from 1873 to 1940. Though it wasn\u2019t the only children\u2019s magazine of its time, during its heyday\u00a0St. Nicholas\u00a0<\/em>was generally considered the best\u2014a showcase for fine adult writers and a lab for young ones.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Scribner\u2019s<\/em>, a magazine run by the famous publishing house,<\/em> approached the successful children\u2019s author Mary Mapes Dodge to be St. Nicholas<\/em>\u2019s editor. At its inception, Dodge wrote that her publication would not be just\u00a0\u201ca milk-and-water variety of the periodicals for adults. In fact, it needs to be stronger, truer, bolder, more uncompromising than the other.\u201d She felt that because children spent their days at school, \u201ctheir heads are strained and taxed with the day\u2019s lessons. They do not want to be bothered nor amused nor petted. They just want to have their own way over their own magazine.\u201d <\/p>\n

The magazine contained writing, art, and puzzles for different age groups, and by dint of her time in the business, Dodge was able to bring a lot of friends on board as contributors: Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, Rudyard Kipling, Frances Hodgson Burnett. A number of children\u2019s classics began as St. Nicholas\u00a0<\/em>serials, including\u00a0The Jungle Book<\/em>,\u00a0A Little Princess<\/em>,\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Eight Cousins.<\/em><\/p>\n

The magazine had access to the\u00a0Scribner<\/em>\u2019s artists and a decent budget,\u00a0so\u00a0<\/em>St. Nicholas\u00a0<\/em><\/em>was also beautiful to look at. It was famous for its \u201cSt. Nicholas League,\u201d which held monthly contests for the best reader-submitted fiction, essays, poetry, puzzles, art, and photography\u2014a big deal for the winners of the Gold and Silver Badges, which boasted cash prizes. Over the years, winners included E. B. White (for an essay, obviously) and the overachiever Edna St. Vincent Millay, who took home a full seven poetry badges. (William Faulkner and F. Scott Fitzgerald only rated honorable mentions\u2014in drawing and photography, respectively. They hadn\u2019t really found their medium yet.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

St. Nicholas<\/em> folded during World War II, but it has a legacy. Cricket<\/em> was founded in 1973 explicitly as a \u201cnew St. Nicholas Magazine<\/em>,\u201d\u00a0<\/em>and the concept of reader-generated kids\u2019 writing contests is going stronger than ever\u2014Wattpad is essentially the same thing. In her first editor\u2019s letter, Mary Mapes Dodge offered a credo: \u201cNever to dim this light, young friends, by word or token, to make it even brighter, when we can, in good, pleasant, helpful ways, and to clear away clouds that sometimes shut it out, is our aim and prayer.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Amen to that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of\u00a0<\/em>The Paris Review, and the\u00a0<\/em>Daily\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The introduction of\u00a0The Paris Review for Young Readers seems like a good time to think about one of its predecessors:\u00a0St. Nicholas Magazine, which was published from 1873 to 1940. Though it wasn\u2019t the only children\u2019s magazine of its time, during its heyday\u00a0St. Nicholas\u00a0was generally considered the best\u2014a showcase for fine adult writers and a lab […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[12555,12984,453,269,1766,17641,3724,17639,17633,13298,17640,15779],"class_list":["post-84296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-childrens-literature","tag-childrens-magazines","tag-e-b-white","tag-magazines","tag-mark-twain","tag-mary-mapes-dodge","tag-rudyard-kipling","tag-st-nicholas","tag-the-paris-review-for-young-readers","tag-wattpad","tag-ya-lit","tag-young-adult-literature"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRemembering St. Nicholas Magazine for Children<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein on St. Nicholas, the preeminent children\u2019s magazine of the early twentieth century.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/01\/juvenilia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Juvenilia by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"April 1, 2015 \u2013 The introduction of\u00a0The Paris Review for Young Readers seems like a good time to think about one of its predecessors:\u00a0St. Nicholas Magazine, which was\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/01\/juvenilia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-04-01T19:45:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-04-01T19:46:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/stnicholascover2-big.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1127\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"848\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/01\/juvenilia\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/01\/juvenilia\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\"},\"headline\":\"Juvenilia\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-04-01T19:45:27+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-04-01T19:46:57+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/01\/juvenilia\/\"},\"wordCount\":466,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/01\/juvenilia\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/stnicholascover2-big.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Children's literature\",\"Children's magazines\",\"E. 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