Frank Leslie's Weekly, later
often known in short as Leslie's Weekly, was an American illustrated literary
and news magazine founded in 1852 and published until 1922. John Y. Foster was
the first editor of the weekly, which came out on Tuesdays. There were 30
copies of the first edition printed. By 1897, its circulation had grown to an
estimated 65,000 copies.
It was one of several magazines
started by publisher and illustrator Frank Leslie and was continued after his
death in 1880 by his widow, the women's suffrage campaigner Miriam Florence
Leslie. The name, by then a well-established trademark, remained also after
1902, when it no longer had a connection with the Leslie family. It continued
until 1922.
Throughout its decades of
existence, the weekly provided illustrations and reports - first with woodcuts
and Daguerreotypes, later with more advanced forms of photography - of wars
from John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry and the Civil War until the
Spanish-American War and the First World War.
It often took a strongly
patriotic stance and frequently featured cover pictures of soldiers and heroic
battle stories. It also gave extensive coverage to less martial events such as
the Klondike gold rush of 1897, covered by San Francisco journalist John
Bonner.
Among the writers publishing their
stories in the weekly were H. Irving Hancock, Helen R. Martin, and Ellis Parker
Butler. Several notable illustrators worked for the publication, including
Albert Berghaus and Norman Rockwell, who created covers for the magazine in its
latter years.
Surviving copies of the
magazine at present fetch handsome prices as collectors' items and are
considered to give a vivid picture of American life during the decades of its
publication.
Edwin
Austin Forbes (1839 – March 6, 1895) was an American landscape painter and
etcher who first gained fame during the American Civil War for his detailed and
dramatic sketches of military subjects, including battlefield combat scenes.
Forbes
was born in New York, studied under A. F. Tait, and began as an animal and
landscape painter. During the Civil War, he was special artist for Frank
Leslie's Magazine. Many of the spirited etchings he drew during the conflict
were later presented by General Sherman to the government. They are now
preserved in the War Office at Washington because of their historic value.
After the war, Forbes painted landscape and
cattle scenes, among which are "Orange County Pasture" (1879) and
"Evening—Sheep Pasture" (1881). In 1877 he was made an honorary
member of the London Etching Club.
He died in 1895 in Brooklyn and is buried in
Green-Wood Cemetery.
Volumes From To Pages
9-10 Jan 1860 Nov 1860 718
11-12 Nov 1860 Nov 1861 644
13-14 Nov 1861 Sept 1 862 862
15-16 Sept 1862 Sep 1863 822
17-18 Jan 1863 Sept 1864 610
Volume 9-10, 1860-1861, 718 pages
Volume 11-12, 1862-1863,
Vol. 10 lacks no. 241 (July 7, 1860) and no. 242
(July 14, 1860)
Vol. 11 lacks no. 268 (Jan. 12, 1861) through no.
274 (Feb. 24, 1861)
Vol. 16 lacks no. 404 (July 4, 1863)
Vol. 17 lacks no. 417 (Sep. 26, 1863) through no.
431 (Dec. 26, 1863)
Vol. 10 lacks no. 241 (July 7, 1860) and no. 242
(July 14, 1860)
Vol. 11 lacks no. 268 (Jan. 12, 1861) through no.
274 (Feb. 24, 1861)
Vol. 16 lacks no. 404 (July 4, 1863)
Vol. 17 lacks no. 417 (Sep. 26, 1863) through no.
431 (Dec. 26, 1863)