Text: Edgar Allan Poe (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), March 22, 1845, vol. 1, no. 12, p. ???-???

[page 183, column 2, continued:]

THE SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.

The Messenger was founded in the beginning of the year 1835, by Thomas W. While, a very worthy and energetic printer and publisher of Richmond Va., at a period when no journal of the kind had ever taken root south of the Potomac, and amid loud warnings from the publisher's friends not to engage in the undertaking. He persevered, however, and, by dint of much personal exertion, obtained, in the first six months, about six or seven hundred subscribers. During this period, no editor was regularly engaged — the proprietor depending upon occasional aid from his friends. Mr. James E. Heath and Mr. E. V. Sparhawk aided him very materially. At the beginning of the seventh month one of the present editors of the “Broadway Journal” made an arrangement to edit the “Messenger,” and by systematic exertion on the ‘part of both publisher and editor the circulation was increased by the end of the subsequent year to nearly five thousand — a success quite unparalleled in the history of our five dollar Magazines. After the secession of Mr. Poe, Mr. White took the editorial conduct upon his own shoulders and sustained it remarkably well. At his death, about three years since, Mr. B. B. Minor, of Va., became editor and proprietor, and is still so. In his hands the work maintains its old fame.

The Messenger has always been a favorite with the people of the South and West, who take a singular pride in its support. Its subscribers are almost without exception the élite, both as regards wealth and intellectual culture, of the Southern aristocracy, and its corps of contributors are generally men who control the public opinion of the Southerners on all topics. The influence of the work is, therefore, prodigious — and it has always been exerted, we sincerely believe, in behalf of the chivalrous, the to steful and the true.

It subscription-list is by no means confined, however, to the South and West. A great many of the most distinguished persons in the North and East are among its warmest supporters. Indeed there are comparatively few illustrious American names that are not to be found upon its list. In the aristocracy of its friends it is quite an anomaly in the literary world.

Mr. Minor is about to make some important improvements in the work, with a view of extending the circulation among ourselves here in the North and East, and we shall not fail to do our part in this endeavour. The New-York agent is Mr. John Bisco, publisher of the “Broadway Journal,” 153 [page 184:] Broadway. Any communications or subscriptions for the Messenger, may be forwarded either to him or to Edgar A. Poe, at the same office. The March number is just issued and is unusually good. We shall notice it more fully hereafter.