I have heard only from Tom MacIntyre and Dave Petzal so far but I have been firmly corrected. Not on my central thesis- that something historically important has happened, and nobody is paying attention—- but on the specific and real facts of the matter, which my memory had totally screwed up. What is more, I was so sure of myself that I didn’t even do any research.
Dave wrote:
Tom: I think Steve needs to check his facts.
Field & Stream (not Field and Stream) was begun in 1895. Outdoor Life was started in 1898. This is a lot longer than 75 years.
The last paper issue for each appeared in June, 2020. In the case of F&S, it was the magazine’s 125th anniversary issue.
Angus Cameron was indeed Jack O’Connor’s Editor at Knopf. He did not edit or publish Al McClane, who was published by Holt, Rinehart, & Winston. I doubt that HRW would sell Knopf reprint rights. What does Steve mean Cameron “got O’Connor into” the NYT and The New Yorker?” Neither of those publications would touch a gun book wearing rubber gloves. When? Cite.
Both magazines continue to publish websites, and F&S, at least, is putting out regular complete issues, albeit electronically. They no longer exist in their historic forms, but they do exist.
The transmogrification of magazines from paper to 01010101 has been going on for years now, and I have no doubt will continue. What we are looking at is the greatest transformation in reading since Guternberg arrived. “
I thanked him humbly, and resolved to put in the corrections,as I am doing here.But I thought I had him on one thing: Angus Cameron, Jack’s editor, was a friend of mine in his old age, and I had a copy of a certain letter.
Unfortunately, it didn’t say what book they were talking about. Tom replied:
“February 12, 1938, brief, lukewarm–Jack didn’t write it tough enough–review in The New Yorker, pg. 75, of O’Connor’s Boom Town. No Rifle Book yet.”
Then: “Bingo! April 26, 1947, Hunting in the Rockies, review, The New Yorker, pg. 99.”
Dave was merciless: “No, I said firmly. A gun book is about guns, such as The Hunting Rifle, and says so in the title. That’s what I mean. “
Tom: “I take your point; it just seems a little blanket to me, that’s all. The New Yorker not only reviewed “Giving up the Gun” by Noel Perrin–a history of the Japanese voluntary rejection of firearms in favor of the more elitist sword, until Commodore Perry got them to change their minds–they also ran a good bit of it before the book’s publication. Something like the New Yorker archive is a cruel mistress. She does not respond to demands, but must be approached with suasion. I guess I’m saying, it maybe not be impossible, but highly improbable that they did not slip up somewhere, sometime, and let a piece on guns, or a review of a gun book, get into print.
Tom: “Just so I understand, The New Yorker has never published a review of a book about guns?”
Dave: “This is impossible for me to answer. I would have to check back to 1925, and read every issue. I can’t imagine them doing it, as guns are…distasteful. I checked to see if they had reviewed Chris Chivers’ The Gun, since it’s history, and he works for the NY Times, but no. Nice people don’t own guns, or use them, or read about them..”
Enough. I am still going to miss those magazines….