The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine.; Vol. XXXVI, New Series Vol. XIV, May 1888 to October 1888

New York: The Century Co, 1888. Presumed First Edition, First printing thus. Hardcover. Fair [Merits repair or rebinding]. viii, 960 pages. Illustrations (some full page). Maps. Index. Boards weak and have been previously repaired with tape. Minor edge tear/chip to fep. Some damp staining at page edges noted--all pages separate and text clear. Number stamped on title page. Format is mostly two column. Some illustrations cross columns. The Century Magazine was an illustrated monthly magazine first published in the U. S. in 1881 by The Century Company of New York City, which had been bought in that year by Roswell Smith and renamed after the Century Association. It was the successor of Scribner's Monthly Magazine. The initial editor was Richard Watson Gilder, the managing editor of Scribner's, who would go on to helm The Century for 28 years. Gilder largely continued the mixture of literature, history, current events, and high-quality illustrations that Holland had used at Scribner's. The magazine was very successful during the 19th century, most notably for a series of articles about the American Civil War which ran for three years during the 1880s. It included reminiscences of 230 participants from all ranks of the service on both sides of the conflict. According to an author writing in the New York Times, the publication of The Century "made New-York, instead of London, the center of the illustrated periodicals published in the English language..." The magazine was also a notable publisher of fiction, presenting excerpts of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in 1884 and 1885 and Henry James' The Bostonians. Original bound volumes such as this one are extremely scarce, especially when not institutional ex-library. The contents in the six issues in this volume include: Confederate Ram Albermarle, American Machine Cannon, Dynamite Guns, Army Hospitals, Telephone, Fraternities, Russian Exile System, Sally Cash, Irtish, George Kennan, Emma Lazarus, Pope Leo XIII, Abraham Lincoln, Locomotive Chase, Mexican Campaign, Mountaineers, Military System, Sheriff's Work, Ranchman, Siberia, and Sinai. Among the authors are: Walt Witman, Theodore Roosevelt, William Cushing, Edward Eggleston, Horace Porter, George Kennan, Henry James, John Nicolay, John Hay, William Pittenger, Matthew Arnold, James Whitcomb Riley, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Emma Lazarus, John Bigelow, John C. Fremont, and E. W. Kemble.