The Saturday Press (literary newspaper)

The Saturday Press was a literary weekly newspaper, published in New York City from 1858 to 1860 and again from 1865 to 1866, edited by Henry Clapp Jr. ^[1]

Clapp, nicknamed the "King of Bohemia" and credited with importing the term "bohemianism" to the U.S, was a central part of the antebellum New York literary and art scene. Today he is perhaps best known for his spotlighting of Walt Whitman, Fitz-James O'Brien, and Ada Clare – all habitués of the bohemian watering hole named Pfaff's beer cellar – in The Saturday Press. ^[1] Clapp intended the Press to be New York's answer to The Atlantic Monthly . The Press was constantly troubled by financial problems, and Clapp died in poverty and obscurity. ^[2]

Mark Twain's first short story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", was first published under the title "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog" in The Saturday Press in 1865, when Twain was serving as regular contributor and editor ^[3] . ^{[4] [5]}

In 2025, funsub books published a compilation of Saturday Press articles, The New York Saturday Press Omnibus Edition ^[6] .

References

1. Burt, Daniel S., ed. (2004). The Chronology of American Literature: America's Literary Achievements from the Colonial Era to Modern Times. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN   978-0618168217.
2. Arno Basta (1977). "Pfaff's on Broadway – the birthplace of Bohemia". Greenwich Village Gazette. Retrieved April 30, 2010.
3. Crane, Mark (2025). The New York Saturday Press Omnibus Edition. funsub books.
4. Mark Twain (November 18, 1865). "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog". The Saturday Press. pp. 248–249.
5. Tom Wolfe (April 24, 2010). "Faking West, Going East". The New York Times .
6. Crane, Mark (2025). The New York Saturday Press Omnibus Edition. funsub books.

Further reading

• Lause, Mark A. (2013). The Antebellum Crisis & America's First Bohemians. Kent State University Press. ISBN   9781306304849. OCLC   868286753.
• Levin, Joanna (2009). Bohemia in America, 1858-1920. Stanford University Press. ISBN   9780804772549. OCLC   1178769988.

External links

• Edward Whitley; Rob Weidman; et al. "The Saturday Press". The Vault at Pfaff's – An Archive of Art and Literature by New York City's Nineteenth-Century Bohemians. Lehigh University Digital Library. Retrieved April 30, 2010. Offers the possibility to browse online through any of the 157 issues of The Saturday Press.