Winslow Homer. “In Came a Storm of Wind, Rain and Spray -- and Portia.”
New York: The Galaxy, December 1869. 6 1/2 x 4 1/2. Wood engraving. Very good condition. Beam: 164.
The Galaxy, 1866-1878, was an octavo-sized monthly ‘born of a divine discontent with The Atlantic Monthly...(and) the feeling that New York ought to have a monthly of its own.’ (The Nation, 1866, quoted in A History of American Magazines - F.L. Mott.) The Galaxy had a reputation for liveliness and a group of prominent contributors in the areas of fiction, criticism, social commentary, history, biography, politics and popular science. Henry James, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Rebecca Harding Davis, and Anthony Trollope were consistent stars in The Galaxy’s firmament. W.J. Linton and Winslow Homer stood out among the illustrators who animated its pages.
“To analyze the special articles that appeared in The Galaxy from 1866 to 1878 would be to analyze the life and thought of its period. This magazine touched popular life at more points and more directly than most other important magazines have.” - Mott. The Galaxy was subsumed by the Boston-centered Atlantic Monthly in 1878.