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West, although some were from the South and a few from the East. Many of them were brought out by the Lakeside, and much in their first manuscripts was rewritten in Mr. Browne's office. An article on "Literary Chicago" in the New England Magazine of February, 1893, states the result, by saying that
The Lakeside Monthly early took high rank among the first-class literary magazines of the country, and elicited the warmest praise, not only from American organs of critical opinion, but from such foreign authorities as the Saturday Review and la Revue des Deux Mondes.
The circulation, according to the newspaper annuals, reached 9,000 in 1871, 10,000 the next year, and in 1873, 14,000, its maximum. While the bulk of this was in Chicago's supporting market, west and northwest, a part was east of the Alleghanies.
The pages of the Lakeside, with their portrayal of mid-western character, proved to be one source of satisfaction for a widespread desire to read the literature of locality a desire which was one effect of the war and the growth of the nation. Before that time, publishers in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia had generally disregarded western subjects and western authors. The few remaining literary workers who were active then say it is impos- sible for the present generation to appreciate the indifference which eastern publishers then felt for the West. With the advent of the Lakeside, Scribner's Monthly, the forerunner of the present Century, began to give attention to western subjects, and to seek the work of western writers. During the years of the Lakeside's growth other eastern publishers began to glean in Mid-West fields, and the competition among them for the virile western productions, which has since become so keen, was fairly on by the time the magazine had reached the zenith of its career.
Such an influential position came only from years of patient perseverance and indomitable energy. Unlike the publishers of 148 literary ventures of various orders in Chicago lasting only a year or less, Mr. Browne went into this undertaking prepared to stay. Although loving literature for its own sake, he knows well its commercial side; that even the highest grade of literary out- put, like grosser wares, must be marketed as merchandise. Mr. Browne was prepared to carry on his chosen enterprise with the
