Salmagundi (periodical)
19th-century American satirical periodical
978-0-940450-14-1 (reprint)Dewey Decimal
Salmagundi; or The Whim-whams and Opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, Esq. & Others, commonly referred to as Salmagundi, was a 19th-century satirical periodical created and written by American writer Washington Irving, his oldest brother William, and James Kirke Paulding. The collaborators produced twenty issues at irregular intervals between January 24, 1807 and January 15, 1808.
History
Irving and a few friends formed a group known as the "Lads of Kilkenny", described as “a loosely knit pack of literary-minded young blades out for a good time.”[1] When they weren't spending time at the Park Theatre or the Shakespeare Tavern at the corner of Nassau and Fulton Streets in Lower Manhattan, they gathered at an old family mansion on the Passaic River in Woodside, Newark, New Jersey which Gouverneur Kemble had inherited and which they called "Cockloft Hall".[2][3]
Besides Irving, the group included his brothers William, Peter, and Ebenezer; and the Kemble brothers, Gouverneur and Peter. William Irving was married to Julia Paulding, sister of his friend James Kirke Paulding. Paulding was married to the Kemble's sister Gertrude.[4] Some of them eventually organized to create the literary magazine called Salmagundi.[1]
Salmagundi lampooned New York City culture and politics in a manner much like today's Mad magazine.[5] It was in the November 11, 1807, issue that Irving first attached the name Gotham to New York City, based on the alleged stupidity of the people of Gotham, Nottinghamshire.[6]
Irving and his collaborators published the periodical using a wide variety of pseudonyms, including Will Wizard, Launcelot Langstaff, Pindar Cockloft, and Mustapha Rub-a-Dub Keli Khan.
Irving and Paulding discontinued Salmagundi in January 1808, following a disagreement with publisher David Longworth over profits.
Notes
- ^ a b Nigro, Carmen. "So, Why Do We Call It Gotham, Anyway?", New York Public Library, January 25, 2011
- ^ "Kemble, Gouverneur" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1892.
- ^ "Washington Irving, Cockloft Hall, and 'Salmagundi' Papers", Historic Newark, Newark, 1916, p.25
- ^ Fitch, Charles Eliot. "Paulding, James K.", Encyclopedia of Biography, Vol.1, The American Historical Society, New York, 1916
- ^ Jones, 82.
- ^ Burrows, Edwin G. and Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (Oxford University Press, 1999), 417.
References
- Irving, Washington. "Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent./Salmagundi." The Complete Works of Washington Irving, Volume 6. Edited by Bruce Granger & Martha Hartzog. (Twayne, 1977) ISBN 0-8057-8509-4
- Jones, Brian Jay. Washington Irving: An American Original. (Arcade, 2008) ISBN 978-1-55970-836-4
Further reading
- Hankins, Laurel V. "The Art of Retreat: Salmagundi’s Elbow-Chair Domesticity." Nineteenth Century Literature 71.4 (2017): 431-456 online.
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Washington Irving
collections
history
- The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828)
- Astoria (1836)
- Mahomet and His Successors (1850)
- Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent. (1802)
- Salmagundi (1807–08)
- A History of New York (1809)
- William Irving (brother)
- Peter Irving (brother)
- Diedrich Knickerbocker (character, pen name)
- Ichabod Crane (character)
- Headless Horseman (character)
- Anthony Van Corlaer (character)
- Sunnyside (home and museum)
- Knickerbocker Group
- Washington Irving Memorial
- Washington Irving Memorial Park and Arboretum
- Irving Literary Society
- PS Washington Irving
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