The North American Review. Vol. XII. New Series Vol. III. 1821. Boston: Oliver Everett, 1821. First Edition.[8005]
Quarter calf with marbled boards, outer hinges cracked and holding, small chip top of backstrip, 5 1/2 x 8 3/4 inches, old paper label on spine, bookplates inside front, & library stamp on tp. (vi.), 513 generally clean pp., index. Tidemark in the bottom third of the first and last few leaves. Good. Hardcover.
Reviews of particular significance in this volume include American Antiquities; Literary History of the Eighteenth Century; Constitutions construed, and Constitutions Vindicated; Amerigo Vespucci; Speeches of Messrs. Story and Webster on the Principles of Representative Government; Indifference in matters of Religion; Cause and Effect, by Thomas Brown, M.D.; Internal Improvements in North Carolina; Private Life of Voltaire; Swedenborgianism; Reflections on Hayti; A letter on the Yellow Fever of the West Indies, by Daniel Osgood, M. D.
The Review began as the Monthly Anthology (1803-1811), a regional magazine reflecting the intellectual tastes and ideas of Boston and New England. "The poet William Cullen Bryant’s first contribution to the review, 'Thanatopsis' (1817), made him famous. Other early contributors included Daniel Webster, John Adams, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Francis Parkman." - Britannica online.
In 1815 it was decided to expand the reach and content of the magazine, and the name North American Review was chosen. It was the first literary magazine in the United States, published in Boston under the direction of Nathan Hale and others, and was published continuously until 1940. The Review's first editor, William Tudor (1779-1830), and other founders had been members of Boston's Anthology Club, and launched North American Review to foster a genuine American culture. In its first few years NAR published poetry, fiction, and miscellaneous essays on a bi-monthly schedule, but in 1820 it became a quarterly with more focused contents intent on improving society and on elevating culture. NAR promoted the improvement of public education and administration, with reforms in secondary schools, sound professional training of doctors and lawyers, rehabilitation of prisoners at the state penitentiary, and government by educated experts. NAR's editors and contributors included several literary and political New Englanders as John Adams, George Bancroft, Nathaniel Bowditch, William Cullen Bryant, Lewis Cass, Edward T. Channing, Caleb Cushing, Richard Henry Dana, Sr., Alexander Hill Everett, Edward Everett, Jared Sparks, George Ticknor, Gulian C. Verplanck, and Daniel Webster.
As a review, the periodical examines books in print on specific topics, and adds scholarly analysis and discussion of the works. The analysis reveals the mind of the Federalist/Whig parties of New England, intent on expanding internal improvements and developing a national American culture.