Key ( Fredericktown, Maryland, 1798). An Annotated Catalogue of the Contents with Notes on Authors and Sources

Author: 
Year:
Pages:208
ISBN:0-7734-6143-4
978-0-7734-6143-7
Price:$179.95 + shipping
(Click the PayPal button to buy)
This Maryland magazine published at Fredericktown by John D. Cary, appeared weekly for twenty-seven numbers, from 13 January through 14 July 1798. The intention was from the beginning to publish selections from various works of entertainment or of cultural value, supplemented by original articles from contributors. Each eight-page number is a blend of prose and verse pieces, with an admixture of brief items of practical value, snippets of news, announcements, etc. Reprinted articles were marked as such by opening and closing quotation symbols, but without mention of sources.

The author here, as the historian of magazines, has undertaken the necessary detective work to let one judge this periodical’s place among similar works. The annotated files disclose the heavy dependency of The Key on previously published material; The author allows that only in the “Observer” serial is there a case for originality, as some of those essays effectively use the idiomatic and colloquial manner of the best contemporary American essay serials (Noah Webster’s “Prompter,” Issac Story’s “Beri Hesdin,” David Everett’s “Common Sense in Dishabille,” John Chamberlain’s “Hermit,” et al.).

The file of published articles is arranged chronologically (by date of publication in The Key) within the Register, and annotations there are meant to assess the kinds of materials published, and as fully as possible to identify sources or routes of transmission (patterns of reprinting between first publication and use in The Key). Ephemeral advertisements, announcements, news items, etc., are noted briefly in the Register, but not indexed. All the literary prose and verse pieces have been filed alphabetically by title, and by initial wording. In an Appendix, Pitcher shows that The Key had a slavish dependence not just on one source, but on three years of a particular magazine, namely 1791, 1795-96, the third, seventh and eighth volumes of the Massachusetts Magazine (at least 120 articles were reprinted).

The annotated index for sources and authors allows one to determine at a glance the kinds of works used as source-texts, and the frequency of the editor’s use of each.

Table of Contents

Introductory Statement
Annotated Register of the Contents
Title and Initial-wording Index: Prose
Select Subject Index (Prose)
Title and First-line Index: Poetry
Index of Authors, Signatures, and Sources
Appendix
Works Cited and Consulted

Other Literature - American Books


More Books by this Author

2007 - Royal Magazine or, Gentleman’s Monthly Companion, 1759-1769
2006 - Wit's Magazine, or Library of Momus ( London: Harrison & Co., 1784-85)
2006 - Comick Magazine or, Compleat Library of Mirth, Humour, Wit, Gaiety and Entertainment by the Greatest Wits of All Ages & Nations (London: Harrison & Co., March-December 1796)
2006 - New York Magazine, or Literary Repository (1790-1797). Vol. 1
2006 - New York Magazine, or Literary Repository (1790-1797). Vol. 3
2006 - New York Magazine, or Literary Repository (1790-1797). Vol. 2
2006 - New Novelist’s Magazine (London 1786-1788)
2005 - Literary Magazine and British Review ( London: 1788-1794). An Annotated Catalog of the Prose and Verse ( Book Two)
2005 - Literary Magazine and British Review ( London: 1788-1794). An Annotated Catalog of the Prose and Verse ( Book One)
2005 - Rural Magazine or, Vermont Repository ( Rutland: January 1795 - December 1796)
2005 - American Moral and Sentimental Magazine ( New York 1797-1798). An Annotated Catalogue
2005 - Nightingale or a Melange De Litterature (Boston, May 10 - July 30, 1796). An Annotated Catalogue of Contents and Sources
2004 - Volume One: Sentimental Magazine, 1773-177: An Annotated Catalogue of the Prose and Verse
2004 - New American Magazine (Woodbridge, New Jersey, January 1758-March 1760)
2004 - Universal Spectator (London 1728-1746)
2004 - Magazine Sources for Interesting Anecdotes, Memoirs, Allegories, Essays, and Poetical Fragments, by Mr. Addison (London 1794-1797)
2003 - Eighteenth-Century British Magazine Essayists. Vol. 3. An Annotated Initial Wording Index.
2003 - Eighteenth-Century British Magazine Essayists. Vol. 1. An Annotated Initial Wording Index.
2003 - Eighteenth-Century British Magazine Essayists. Vol. 2. An Annotated Initial Wording Index.
2003 - Eighteenth-Century British Magazine Essayists. An Annotated Initial Wording Index
2002 - British Magazine, 1746-1751, Part 2
2002 - Ladies Magazine, 1749-53
2002 - Weekly Miscellany Sherborne, 1773-83. Vol. 2
2002 - Weekly Miscellany Sherborne, 1773-83. Vol. 1
2002 - Court, City, and Country Magazine, 1761-65
2002 - Fiction in American Magazines Before 1800. Vol. 1
2002 - Fiction in American Magazines Before 1800. Vol. 2
2002 - Fiction in American Magazines Before 1800. Vol. 3
2002 - Monthly Miscellany, 1774-77. An Annotated Register of the Contents, Vol. 2
2002 - Monthly Ledger, 1773-76. An Annotated Register of the Contents, Vol. 1
2002 - Recalling Fiction’s Cultural Context - Early Gothic and Utopian Romance Cooper, Poe, Crane, Cather, Lawrence, Fitzgerald and West
2001 - Pennsylvania Magazine or American Monthly Museum, Philadelphia, 1775-76
2001 - Royal American Magazine, 1774-75. An Annotated Catalog
2001 - Repository and Ladies Weekly Museum, Philadelphia 1800-06. An Annotated Index of the Literary Prose with Notes on Authors, Signatures, and Sources
2001 - An Anatomy of Reprintings and Plagiarisms: Finding Keys to Editorial Practices and Magazine History, 1730-1820
2001 - Sensationalist Literature and Popular Culture in the Early American Republic
2000 - British Magazine January 1760-December 1767, Part 1. An Annotated Index of Signatures, Ascriptions, Subjects, and Titles of Literary Prose
2000 - Anthology of the Short Story in 18th and 19th Century America Volume Two
2000 - Anthology of the Short Story in 18th and 19th Century America Volume One
2000 - Literary Prose of Westminster Magazine 1773-1785. An Annotated Index Under Contributors’ Names, Pseudonymous Signature, and Ascriptions
2000 - New York Weekly Magazine. An Annotated Index of the Literary Prose, 1800-1811.
2000 - Lady’s Monthly Museum First Series: 1798-1806 an Annotated Index Under Contributors’ Names, Pseudonuymous Signature, and Ascriptions
2000 - Facts and Fictions - Discoveries in Periodicals 1720-1820
2000 - Irish in Popular Literature in the Early American Republic Paddy Whacking