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Our Victorian Magazine Collection:  The Century Magazine

Home > About Our Magazines > The Century Magazine VictorianVoices.net has made all our volumes of Century Magazine available on Archive.org. Visit the individual magazine pages for download links, or visit our magazine download page to see all available magazines. The Century Magazine is to American Victorian magazines what The Strand was to British readers. It brought readers a wide range of general-interest articles on famous people (contemporary and historic), history, archaeology, science, the latest discoveries, world travel and cultures, and much more. Unlike The Strand, The Century also provided a great deal of coverage of current political issues and controversies, making it a wonderful way to explore the political "hot buttons" of the 19th century. Some of these hot political topics included the struggle to establish an international copyright agreement between Britain and America; reforms to the presidential election system; the "spoils" system of political advancement; and the establishment of America's national forests and parks. The magazine was first published under the name The Century in 1881. It was published by The Century Company of New York City, which had been purchased by Roswell Smith and renamed after the Century Association. However, the magazine had actually already been in existence for 11 years. It was published as Scribner's Monthly from 1870 to 1881, under the editorship of Josiah Gilbert Holland. Holland was expected to remain the editor under the magazine's new name and ownership, but died before the first issue of Century could be published. Scribner's Monthly was itself a successor to Putnam's Monthly Magazine of American Literature, Science and Art. When The Century was relaunched under its new name, it retained both its old numbering system and a "new series" system - hence, the first volume of The Century is both "Volume 1" of "the new series" and "Volume 22" based on the Scribner's series. (A new version of Scribner's Magazine launched in 1887.) The Century was noted for providing serializations of significant works of nonfiction, perhaps the most famous being its Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, which, of course, was later published in book form. It also published Nicolay and Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History; a biography of Napoleon; a history of Columbus; and George Kennan's acclaimed series on the prison camps and mines of Siberia. And, of course, like most general-interest magazines of the day, it published quantities of short fiction, serialized novels (often by highly acclaimed authors) and poetry. Several of Mark Twain's novels made their first appearance in excerpts in The Century. Other contributors included Theodore Roosevelt, Frederic Remington, Emilio Castelar, and other top American and international writers of the day. Semi-annual collections of The Century run from November to April and May to October. Thus, though the magazine officially relaunched in 1881, the first bound collection was issued in 1882. On this site, "A" designates November-April (e.g., November 1881-April 1882) and "B" designates May-October. MORE INFORMATION: The Century Magazine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_Magazine

View the Issues On This Site: Century: 1882A • 1882B 1883A • 1883B 1884A • 1884B 1885A • 1885B 1886A • 1886B 1887A • 1887B 1888A • 1888B 1889A • 1889B 1890A • 1890B 1891A • 1891B 1892A • 1892B 1893A • 1893B 1894A • 1894B 1895A • 1895B 1896A • 1896B 1897A • 1897B 1898A • 1898B Scribner's 1879A • 1879B