Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 January 1890 — JOSEPH JEFFERSON. [ARTICLE]

JOSEPH JEFFERSON.

"The Century Magazine” in 1890—Joseph Jefferson’s Autobiography—Novels by Frank R. Stockton. Amelia E. Barr, and others—A Capital Programme. During 1890 the Century Magazine (whose recent successes have~ included the famous “War Papers,” the Lincoln History and George Kennan’s series on “Siberia and the Exile System”) will publish the long-looked for Autobiography of Joseph Jefferson, whose “Bip Van Winkle” has made his name a household word. No more interesting record of a life upon the stage could be laid before the public. Mr. Jefferson is the fourth in a generation of actors, and, with his children and grandchildren, there are six generations of actors among the J effersons. His story of the early days of the American stage, when as a boy, traveling in his father’s company, they would settle down for a season in a Western town, playing in their own extemporized theater —the particulars of the creation of his famous “Rip van Winkle,” how he acted “Ticket-of-Leave Man” before an audience of that class in Australia, etc., —all this, enriched with illustrations and portraits of contemporary actors and actresses, and with anecdotes, will form one of the most delightful serials the Century has ever printed. Amelia E. Barr, Frank R. Stockton, Mark Twain, H. H. Boyesen, and many other well-known wi iters will furnish the fiction for the new volume, which is to be unusually strong, including several illustrated novelettes, and short stories. “The Women of the French Salons” are to be described in a brilliant series of illustrated papers. The important discoveries made with the great Lick Telescope at San Francisco, (the largest telescope in the world) and the latest explorations relating to prehistoric America (including the famous Sepent Mound, of Ohio) are to be chronicled in the Century. Prof. Geo. P. Fisher of Yale University is to write a series on the “Nature and Method of Revelation,” which will attract every Bible student. Bishop Potter of New York will be one of several prominent writers who are to contribute a series of “Present-day Papers” on living topics, and there will be art papers, timely articles, etc. etc. ami the choicest-pictures that the greatest artists and engravers can produce. Every bookseller, postmaster, and subscription agent takes subscriptions to the Century, $4 a year, or remittance may be made directly to the publishers, the Century Co. of New York. Begin a new subscription with November (the first issue of the vol- i nine) and get Mark Twain’s story, “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court ” in that number.