The Hesperian (1851) (about)
Edited by Mrs. F. H. Day of San Francisco, 1860 (presumably earlier also)—Oct 1862; from the Nov 1862 issue (Vol 9 No. 1) it is edited by Mrs. E. T. Schenck and Rev. J. D. Strong.
On p. 333 of Vol. 4 Mrs. Day notes that her father was Sheldon Ball.
The magazine publisher offers, in the Sept 1860 issue, to do job printing of every description, from their address: No. 6 Montgomery St. SF. Schenck and Jordan had it printed by someone else.
Mostly non-fiction, poetry, essays, or moral items sometimes disguised as dialogues; also some nice engravings, illustrations of flowers (sometimes colored) and dress and fashion designs and patterns. Size: small Standard, perhaps 6x9. You can guess from the page numbering the issue size; there were no ads to speak of.
One issue contained a two-page argument against the practice of authors leaving their names off their work, or using pseudonyms. Also, the magazine refuses to accept any manuscripts sent in anonymously. However, many of the stories in these issues were printed with no author credited, or credited to Phosphor and so on.
Many engravings are included herein, of the finest quality, and one example was clearly done originally as the frontis for a book on Byron. It seems likely the magazine bought overruns of engravings from book or magazine publishers and stuck them in as frontispieces as an extra benefit for the subscribers.
It’s pretty amazing that this small journal managed to come out in the howling wilderness of the uttermost West of 1860. Well, San Francisco was a pretty sophisticated place for the Old West of the time, and the devil makes work for idle brains.
By the way, the length of the items is my best guess; they didn’t make any claims. They DID run fairly short pieces over more than one issue.
Details supplied by Michael Ward.
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