The research team for this “forgotten chapter” embraced the delightful task of reading literary magazines published in Boston between 1790 and 1860. Our goal was simple: to find and discuss forgotten poems that struck us as either great or terrible, treasures or turkeys.* While the periodicals we searched included celebrated publications like the North American Review (1815–1940), Dial (1840–44), Pioneer (1843), and Atlantic Monthly (1857–present), we focused on magazines currently read mostly by scholars. These included the Massachusetts Magazine (1789–96), Boston Weekly Magazine (1802–05), [Monthly] Anthology and Boston Review (1803–11), Juvenile Miscellany (1826–36), United States Review and Literary Gazette (1826–27), Youth’s Companion (1827–1929), Literary and Catholic Sentinel (1835), Ladies Magazine (1827–36), Boston Literary Magazine (1832–33), and Godey’s Lady’s Book (edited in Boston from 1837 to 1841).

Most of the work we found fell outside our search objectives by seeming fair-to-good rather than terrific or dreadful. But, much to our delight, we uncovered many works that fascinated or amused us. Of course, we often disagreed about matters of quality. Our discussions led us to reflect on literary reputation and fame: how once-revered authors can fade into obscurity. We talked about taste: whether the qualities that pleased readers in the past can repel readers today. And this led us to thinking about the canon of American literature, noting that writers who once seemed to embody the national or regional spirit later fell off the radar while others gained cultural capital only after their deaths.**

So now, dear viewer, it’s your turn to join our discussion by reading the poems we have chosen and our responses to them. The display begins with a few unforgotten works, indeed classics, by Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Longfellow that appeared in Boston magazines before the Civil War. It then moves on to poems that, for the most part and as far as we can tell, have either never or rarely been reprinted since they originally appeared.

Among the turkeys are poems that were obviously written by amateurs invited to contribute to fledgling publications. We shouldn’t think harshly of them if their rhymes hit too hard, their rhythms stumble, and their images seem vague. Still, we’re free to enjoy the way their hit-or-miss method generally misses!

As for the treasures, which we were far more thrilled to dig up, they pleased us in different ways, as you’ll see. Still, from the anonymous “Lines Written by a Lady Who Was Questioned Respecting her Inclination to Marry” (1794) and “To a Hand Organ” (1810) to Lydia Huntley Sigourney’s “The Execution” (1833) and Charles James Sprague’s “My Little Daughter’s Shoes” (1850), each conveys a memorable experience or idea, bridging the time gap with vivid details.

To round out your experience, this chapter ends with a poem that resisted consensus: some saw it shining like a treasure; others heard the gobbling of a turkey. The poem is called “Autumn Thoughts,” and it was published anonymously in the November 1832 issue of the Boston Literary Magazine. We have tried to capture the spirit of our discussion and hope that this poem and the others presented here inspire you to go on your own treasure and turkey hunt in Boston’s early literary magazines.

*We used 10-word quotations to search the Google and Google Books databases for evidence of the publication history of particular poems.
**Chapter One explores an example of this: Charles Sprague. Well known in his day as the Banker-Poet of Boston, he is now completely forgotten though he is buried in our midst! And Chapter Five looks at the changing reputations of Longfellow and Poe.