Thirteen years after _The Western Messenger_ left Louisville, _The Western Literary Magazine_, a monthly publication, was begun; and three years later, or in 1856, _The Louisville Review_, another monthly, was established. But the war clouds of civil strife were gradually gathering, and the endless pen scratching of the Kentucky magazinist was lost in the cannon's roar. Newspapers were the only things Kentuckians had time to peruse.
Since the war Kentucky periodicals have been, almost without exception, rather tame affairs. They have all been most mushroomish. A few of them may be singled out, such as _The Southern Bivouac_, which was conducted at Louisville for several years by General Basil W. Duke and Richard W. Knott; _The Illustrated Kentuckian_, founded at Lexington, in 1892; _The Southern Magazine_, of Louisville, published papers by Mr. Allen, stories by Mr. John Fox, Jr., and several other now well-known writers; and Charles J. O'Malley's _Midland Review_ ran for some time. These are the comparatively recent Kentucky periodicals which have bloomed in a day and wilted with the earliest winter. _The Register_, official organ of the State Historical Society, is still being issued three times a year. It is unique among Kentucky magazines in that it is the only one that has had adequate financial support, which, however, comes to it in the form of a State appropriation. For the last twenty-five years _The Courier-Journal_, of Louisville, has devoted space in its Saturday edition to reviews of new books; and in recent years _The Evening Post_, also of Louisville, has maintained a similar department.
[1] The italics in which the three Kentucky lines are set, are my own.
The last several years have been devoted to the collecting and classifying of Kentucky books and authors from Filson, in 1784, to Mr. Allen, in 1912. While the author has done other things, this has been his most serious business.
Of the more than a thousand Kentucky writers, one hundred and ninety-six, or those who achieved considerable reputation in their day and generation, or others to whom fame came late, are now discussed. The author hopes to publish within the next two or three years a _Dictionary of Kentucky Writers_, which will attempt to bring together in brief biographical and critical notes all of Kentucky's literary workers from the beginning until the present time. The crossroads poet is a most elusive, most diffident figure, but I shall do my best to bring him into the _Dictionary_ that is to be.