Whitman, Walt; Whittier, J. G.; Longfellow, H. W.; et al. The United States Magazine and Democratic Review. New Series. Volume IX. 1841. New York: J. & H. G. Langley, 1841. First Edition. [7906]
Six issues bound, July-December, 1841. Full leather, 5 1/2 x 8 3/4 inches, spine dark with crazing & light surface loss, black leather title & volume no. labels in gilt. iv., 612 clean pp., tight, with 6 fine steel engravings, including of Martin Van Buren and Washington Irving. Wrappers not included. Good. Leather bound.
Contents include three first appearance short stories by Walt Whitman, and contributions by J. G. Whittier and Henry W. Longfellow, partial list below.
Edward Livingston and His Code: A System of Penal Law for the State of Louisiana
The Poetry of the West, including Lines Written on the Rocky Mountains, by Albert Pike.
A Voyage Across the Atlantic.
Dr. Channing's Recent Writings.
Death in the School-Room: A Fact [By Walt Whitman, listed as W. W.] FIRST APPEARANCE
Book review of James Fenimore Cooper's, The Deerslayer.
On Rights and Government. By a Phrenologist.
Wild Frank's Return. By Walter Whitman. FIRST APPEARANCE
Democracy. By John Greenleaf Whittier. Likely first appearance, "Amsbury, Mass., 8th, 11th mo. 1841", published here in the December number.
Bervance: or, Father and Son. By Walter Whitman. FIRST APPEARANCE
A Dream. By William Cullen Bryant.
God's-Acre. By Henry W. Longfellow. FIRST APPEARANCE
Full page steel engravings: Garret D. Wall, Hernry Hubbard, Francis Thomas, Marcus Morton, Martin Van Buren, Washington Irving.
The United States Magazine and Democratic Review was published from 1837 to 1859, it's motto "The best government is that which governs least" has been erroneously attributed to Thomas Jefferson. The ideals of Jefferson were promoted by the periodical, with its support of Jacksonian Democracy being built on that foundation. It was a counterpart to the North American Review, a Federalist/Whig periodical. It was outspoken in the topics of the Mexican War, slavery, states' rights, and Indian removal. It was in this periodical that the term "Manifest Destiny" was first used. It was edited by Jon L. O'Sullivan and Samuel D. Langtree.
The volumes of this series are a brilliant presentation of literature and politics in the years before the American Civil War.
The Magazine promoted American writers, printing some of the earliest writings of such luminaries as Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, J. G. Whittier, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry David Thoreau, H. W. Longfellow, and James Russell Lowell.