About This Newspaper

This paper has the distinction of being America's first illustrated daily tabloid newspaper. Launched by David Croly, the paper set the pace for major change in American journalism, as editors of other established dailies noted the success of the new venture and imitated its improvements. "It is a marvelous paper", commented Mark Twain to Croly after seeing its premier issue, "...I don't care much about reading...but I do like to look at pictures, and the illustrated weeklies do not come as often as I need them."

In format it is a large newspaper, full folio, double the size of the weekly pictorials, fully 16" x 24", so its prints are among the largest you will find. Its doublepage centerfolds measure a most impressive 32" x 24". It is much scarcer than the weekly papers as well; at its height its circulation was less than a tenth of that of Harper's Weekly. I am pleased to be able to offer a range of dates of this truly elusive newspaper, from a recent purchase which was in fact the only significant group of this title I have found in almost twenty years of searching!

We have listed the issues here by a very brief summary of what we consider the highlights of their content. There is much more in every issue than I have the space to describe. I have attempted to describe the illustrations only. In addition to its eight pages of woodcuts, each newspaper contains eight more pages of reading material, in the form of features, stories, editorials, etc.

All items are in problem-free fine condition, unless otherwise noted. Many of the issues were removed from bound annual volumes, which preserved them extremely well over the years; they may thus exhibit some normal spine separation, which affects no content. Any losses, damage, or defects to text or illustrations will be described where it exists. Because the collector value of these papers is dependent on the quality and condition of the prints we have endeavored to describe the same carefully and not generally to note trivial matters such as margin wear that does not affect the collectible content.

To save space I have adopted the following abbreviations to describe the size of the engravings:

• TP - titlepage or cover illustration, usually a full page subject.
• FP - fullpage, an illustration filling the entire page on which it is printed
• CF - centerfold, or double page illustration, highly collectible and most impressive for framed display.

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