Little magazine

For the movement in India, see Little magazine movement.
The Chap-Book, a little magazine published circa 1894

In the United States, a little magazine is a magazine genre consisting of "artistic work which for reasons of commercial expediency is not acceptable to the money-minded periodicals or presses", according to a 1942 study by Frederick J. Hoffman, a professor of English.[1] While George Plimpton disagreed with the diminutive connotations of "little", the name "little magazine" is widely accepted for such magazines.[2] A little magazine is not necessarily a literary magazine, because while the majority of such magazines are literary in nature, containing poetry and fiction, a significant proportion of such magazines are not.[2] Some have encompassed the full range of the arts, and others have grown from zine roots.[2]

The traditional characteristics of a little magazine include a 5-by-8-inch (13 cm × 20 cm) format, a two-color cover, and a semi-annual or quarterly publishing schedule.[3] Literary magazines that do not qualify as little magazines for these reasons include Oxford American and the Lindhurst Foundation's Doubletake, measuring 9 by 12 inches (23 cm × 30 cm), having complex four-color covers, and having bi-monthly publishing schedules.[3]

"Integral to the definition of the little magazine", according to scholars Ian Morris and Joanne Diaz, is penury.[2] A later 1978 study by the (then) editors of TriQuarterly magazine described little magazines as putting "experiment before ease, and art before comment" and noting that "[t]hey can afford to do so because they can barely afford to do anything; as a rule they do not, and cannot, expect to make money".[2] Hoffman considered them to be avant-garde, and editor of the Kenyon Review Robie Macauley opined that such magazines "ought to be ten years ahead of general acceptance". Ezra Pound observed that the more a magazine values profits, the less it is willing to experiment with things that are not (yet) acceptable to a mainstream readership.[4]

It has been argued that little magazines that are associated with universities are not truly encompassed by the term, but the majority view amongst scholars is that they have similar enough purposes, formats, and contents to unaffiliated magazines in the genre that they can be considered little magazines also.[5] Historically, they were both devoted to social issues, literature, or critical inquiry, and edited by amateurs.[5]

  1. ^ Morris & Diaz 2015, pp. vii, x.
  2. ^ a b c d e Morris & Diaz 2015, p. x.
  3. ^ a b Ravenel 2001, p. 445.
  4. ^ Morris & Diaz 2015, p. xv.
  5. ^ a b Spangler 2001, p. 443.