Cosmopolitan: An Illustrated Magazine

Cosmopolitan magazine started in 1886 as a family magazine, but two years later its founding company was failing.¹ John Brisben Walker acquired the magazine in 1889 and reinvented it. Notable authors, both of fiction and nonfiction, became associated with the magazine, from A. Conan Doyle to Mark Twain. By 1891, at least, Walker was also contributing articles he had written. The following compilation is incomplete, but will be updated as new information becomes available. Walker sold the magazine to Hearst Co. in 1905, and returned to Colorado to launch an entrepreneurial career in a different field.

The Cosmopolitan readers knew in Walker’s day bore no resemblance to the version seen during the latter half of the 20th century. At a time when the “quality magazines” (Century, Harper’s Monthly, and Scribner’s) were charging 25 to 35 cents per issue, Walker turned to advertising as a primary source of revenue, keeping prices at a low 10 to 15 cents and retaining intelligent, thoughtful readers by a combination of culture, political education, and personality and human interest in content. By 1897, its circulation reached 300,000.²

During Walker’s reign as editor, the magazine itself was from 110 to 130 numbered pages long, with unnumbered ad pages front and back. The table of contents of each issue appears on the front cover, ads and subscription terms on the back. Cover price was 10 or 15 cents. Two volumes of six monthly issues each were published annually. Even numbered volumes ran from November of each year through April of the next, and odd numbered volumes from May through October. During his editorial management, Walker added new features, including a "Men, Women and Events" department (announced in March 1900) and "Great Events: Humor and Satire By the World’s Most Famous Cartoonists." To celebrate his fifth year in publishing in 1893, he wrote a lengthy article on how the magazine was created. He occasionally printed an editorial, so labeled, at the front. Some stories were serialized.