The Grolier Club of New York has been mounting exhibitions of books and prints since 1884, and many of them are recognized as landmark treatments of their subjects. Most of them have also been accompanied by published catalogs or related books. A recent instance was the exhibition, in the early months of 2021, drawn from Steven Lomazow's vast collection of American magazines, consisting of over eighty-three thousand separate issues from 1731 to the present. The substantial and profusely illustrated book that has resulted is a welcome new survey of the subject, for it contains not only a record of the comprehensive exhibition but also fifteen essays written by Lomazow and seven other contributors (five chronological chapters, ten topical ones).
The appearance of this book is an occasion for thinking about the status of magazines as research material. Although there is a considerable literature devoted to the history of magazines, they...
