“R” is for Russell's Magazine (1857-1860)

“R” is for Russell's Magazine (1857-1860). Russell's Magazine was the last of the southern antebellum literary magazines and arguably the best. Supported by Charleston literary groups, the magazine should be credited for a desire to keep politics out of literary assessments--although in practice this objectivity applied only as long as slavery was not in any way attacked or “falsely” portrayed. It was also the home base for two of the best poets in antebellum South Carolina, Paul Hamilton Hayne (its editor) and Henry Timrod, poet and critic. Russell's was the magazine of the professional middle class--lawyers, college faculty, and doctors. Hayne promised to publish “undiscovered genius” in the South, largely due to the reluctance of northern editors to publish southern writers. Financial difficulties and the looming sectional crisis led to the demise of Russell’s Magazine in 1860.