The Anti-Philistine: A Monthly Magazine & Review of Belles-Lettres: Also a Periodical of Protest. (Complete run)
London: John & Horace Cowley, 1897.
First edition. All four issues of the short-lived periodical in their rare original wraps. vi, 64; vi, 65-138, [2]; vi, 139-208, [6]; [iv], 209-280, [6] pp. Printed in red and black on laid paper, author portrait laid in to first three volumes. Bound in publisher's printed self-wraps. Near Fine with fragile binding, cracks to and some paper loss to spines. Short v-shaped tear to Volume I p. v, subscription slips detached from Volumes II and III. Binding cracked at Volume IV p. 225, 1-3/4 inch tear to pp. 213/214, tiny ink stain to lower margin of pp. 271-277. Contents clean and bright. Together with 6 pp. advertising brochure. Housed in a custom green cloth chemise slipcase, slightly rubbed and faded, with bookseller ticket to chemise lining. The complete run of the magazine, seldom seen in the original wrappers.
The English brothers John and Horace Cowley-Brown took a stand against the vulgarity of the 1890s with The Anti-Philistine, a literary periodical combining quality writing with quality printing. Most of the contributors were American, among them Edward Saltus, Gertrude Atherton, and Ambrose Bierce. The four issues featured several of Bierce's fables and short stories, including the Civil War classic story "Chickamauga," informed by the author's own experience as a soldier. He was a good fit for a magazine intended to exalt good prose in defiance of the ignorant masses, with whom Bierce was openly locked in struggle, and in 1903 he wrote of John Cowley-Brown:
The final issue contained Walter Blackburn Harte's essay "Why American Novels are Flabby," a delightful put-down of the upstart country's literary efforts thus far by one of its own. The magazine's motto displayed its pugnacious spirit along with some late 19th century Orientalism: "ALL THOSE WHO LOVE ALLAH WILL ADVANCE AGAINST THE ENEMY.""I never met him, but...he was most kind to me and my work. In one number of his magazine—the London one—he had four of my stories and a long article about me which called the blushes to my maiden cheek like the reflection of a red rose in the petal of a violet."
Price: $7,500