title: Overland Monthly
text: The Overland Monthly was a monthly literary and cultural magazine, based in California, United States. It was founded in 1868 and published between the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.
  
  History
  
  The Overland Monthly was founded in 1868 by Anton Roman, a Bavarian-born bookseller who moved to California during the Gold Rush. He had recently published the poems of Charles Warren Stoddard and a collection of verse by California writers called Outcroppings. The magazine's first issue was published in July 1868, edited by Bret Harte in San Francisco, and continued until late 1875. Roman, who hoped his magazine would "help the material development of this Coast", was originally concerned that Harte would "lean too much toward the purely literary". Harte, in turn, was skeptical at first that there would be enough quality content provided from local authors. The first issue included contributions from the "Golden State Trinity": Harte, Stoddard, and Ina Coolbrith.
  
  Despite the positive response from critics and the magazine's profitability, publisher Anton Roman sold the Overland Monthly in June 1869 for $7,500 to John Carmany. Harte immediately offered the new owner a list of demands, including a raise to $200 a month and a guarantee of his complete editorial control of each issue. Carmany agreed to his terms, and Harte was able to leave his job at the San Francisco Mint to devote his full attention to the Overland Monthly. The publication continued to thrive in this period; Mark Twain reported that he had "heard it handsomely praised by some of the most ponderous of America's literary chiefs."
  
  In the September 1870 issue, Harte published what became his most well-known work, "Plain Language from Truthful James", later known as "The Heathen Chinee". That year, with his popularity soaring, Harte considered a professorship at the University of California, Berkeley or an offer to purchase the Overland Monthly, but declined both. Instead, he left California and traveled east to seek broader literary fame.
  
  The original publishers, in 1880, started The Californian, which became The Californian and Overland Monthly in October 1882. In January 1883, the effort reverted to The Overland Monthly (starting again with Volume I, number 1). The 1884 volume contained a commitment to present content "free of advertising taint," explaining that no article would appear that was not "in good faith what it appears to be." It was based in San Francisco until at least 1921. In 1923 the magazine merged with Out West to become Overland Monthly and the Out West magazine, and ended publication in July 1935.
  
  Contributors
  
  Noted writers, editors, and artists associated with the magazine included:
   Robert Ingersoll Aitken
   Ambrose Bierce
   Noah Brooks
   Alice Cary
   Willa Cather
   Charles W. Chesnutt
   Frona Eunice Wait Colburn
   Bret Harte
   Ina Coolbrith
   Edgar Fawcett
   Henry George
   John Brayshaw Kaye
   Charmian Kittredge
   Netta Eames
   Clarence King
   Kinahan Cornwallis
   Jack London
   Josephine Clifford McCracken
   Joaquin Miller
   John Muir
   Hugo Wilhelm Arthur Nahl
   Lola Ridge
   Charles Taze Russell
   Stephen Powers
   William Saroyan
   Herman George Scheffauer
  Charles Howard Shinn
  Milicent Shinn
   Clark Ashton Smith
   Josephine Spencer
   Charles Warren Stoddard
   Augustus Gabriel de Vivier Tassin
   Douglas Tilden
   Mark Twain
   Frances Fuller Victor
   Laura Lyon White
   Joseph Widney
  Editors include:
   Milicent Shinn 1883-1894 
  Rounsevelle Wildman, editor 1894-1897
  
  References
  
  External links
  
   Archive 1868-1900: University of Michigan, Making of America Journals collection online
   More issues, into the 1900s: Archive.org
   Persistent Serial Archives at The Online Books Page, University of Pennsylvania
   Guide to the Overland Monthly Records, at The Bancroft Library
   Overland Monthly from Encyclopedia.com
  
  Monthly magazines published in the United States
  Magazines published in San Francisco
  Defunct literary magazines published in the United States
  History of California
  History of the American West
  Magazines established in 1868
  Magazines disestablished in 1923