Boston True Flag
The Boston True Flag (1851-1908) or True Flag was a weekly fiction periodical published in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 19th century.[1][2] Contributors included Francis A. Corey,[3] Susan E. Dickinson,[4] Fanny Fern,[5] Louise Chandler Moulton,[6] Oliver Optic,[7] and John Townsend Trowbridge.[8] Publishers William U. Moulton, J. R. Elliott, Martin V. Lincoln, and J. W. Nichols produced the paper from offices on School Street (c. 1852–1864),[9] Bromfield Street (c. 1868–1884),[10][11] and Arch Street (c. 1887–1908).[12][13][14]
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The paper circulated widely enough to attract the notice of Mark Twain, who mentions it in his 1855 sketch "Jul'us Cesar": "He was decidedly literary, after a fashion of his own, and the gems which find their way before the public through the medium of the Flag of Our Union, and Boston True Flag ... were food and drink to his soul."[15]
- School Street, Boston, c. 1858
- Fanny Fern, writer
- Susan E. Dickinson, writer, c. 1893
- J. W. Nichols, publisher
References
- "True flag. [volume]".
- Frank Luther Mott. A history of American magazines, Volume 2. Harvard University Press, 1968
- Metcalf, ed. One thousand New Hampshire notables. Concord, NH: Rumford printing company, 1919
- Frances Elizabeth Willard, Mary Ashton Rice Livermore, eds. A woman of the century: fourteen hundred-seventy biographical sketches accompanied by portraits of leading American women in all walks of life. NY: Moulton, 1893. p. 242.
- Melissa J. Homestead. "'Every Body Sees the Theft': Fanny Fern and Literary Proprietorship in Antebellum America". New England Quarterly, Vol. 74, No. 2 (June 2001), pp. 210-237
- Encyclopædia Britannica. 1911
- Men of progress : One thousand biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 1896.
- Rufus A. Coleman. Trowbridge and Shillaber. New England Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 2 (June 1947), pp. 232-246
- Boston Directory. 1852, 1864
- Boston Directory. 1868, 1873
- Boston almanac and business directory. 1884
- Boston almanac and business directory. 1887, 1891, 1894
- The Editor, October 1898
- A guide to the current periodicals and serials of the United States and Canada, 1909. Ann Arbor: G. Wahr, 1908
- Mark Twain. Early tales & sketches: 1851-1864, v.1. Branch and Hirst, eds. The works of Mark Twain. University of California Press, 1972