Chapter 2 - Henry James
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
Summary
“THE HISTORY OF THE VOICE”: COSMOPOLITAN'S AMERICA
The world is my country and all mankind are my countrymen!
Masthead, Cosmopolitan, 1886Internationalism is on the increase … The creation of an international language would undoubtedly result in immense advantages to trade, commerce and labor, and to literature its service would be infinite.
Maltus Questell Holyoake, “A Cosmopolitan Language,” Cosmopolitan 14.1 (Nov. 1892): 19We don't want to fight, but by Jingo, if we do,
We've got the ships, we've got the men,
We've got the money, too!
British popular song, c. 1876Launched in the publishing euphoria that gripped the nation in the 1880s and 1890s, as new printing machinery and new trademark law revolutionized the industry, Cosmopolitan exemplified an America newly enamored of worldly perspectives. Emblazoned on its cover for 1886, beneath its world-embracing slogan, was a picture of the newly completed Statue of Liberty, beckoning its readers into its pages as though into the bosom of the nation. On the cover of the magazine the statue stood not only for America's still open door, but for the magazine's vision of itself as various in its perspective and far-reaching in its content. Its advertisements for 1887, the coming year, promised: “The Finest American Stories; Powerful Stories from the Russian; Brilliant Stories from the French; Beautiful Stories from the German; Striking Stories from the Dutch and Italian.”
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001