Old Magazines - Periodyssey Press - Publishing Arm of Periodyssey

Welcome to the PERIODYSSEY PRESS page. Periodyssey Press is the publishing arm of Periodyssey. The Press publishes reference books on magazines and on magazine writers and illustrators. We published our first title in 1997.

Periodyssey Press announces the publication of its latest title:

The San Francisco
Wasp
An Illustrated History

By Richard Samuel West

iv+330 pp., bibliography, index

One hundred illustrations (eighty-eight are full-page plates, nearly all reproduced in full-color)

Limited to 400 signed and numbered hardback copies.

The San Francisco Wasp: An Illustrated History tells the story of one of the most colorful and unusual magazines ever published in America. Though The Wasp was a fixture on San Francisco newsstands for sixty-five years, it is best remembered for its glory days during the 19th century when, as a chromolithographic weekly devoted to politics and satire, it was the most widely read magazine on the West Coast. Now, for the first time, The Wasp’s story has been told, accompanied by 100 cartoons from the magazine, nearly all of them as they first appeared -- in full color.

Richard Samuel West’s The San Francisco Wasp: An Illustrated History is a great read and a terrific contribution to magazine and California history. The section on Ambrose Bierce’s years with the magazine is truly wonderful.

Gary F. Kurutz
Director of Special Collections
California State Library

This book will stand as the definitive history of The Wasp. It’s terrific.

Marilyn Blaisdell
San Francisco historian

The story of The San Francisco Wasp is also the story of:

- Founder Francis Korbel, the Czech revolutionary who later sold the magazine to pursue his interest in winemaking;

- Cartoonist G. Frederick Keller, who disappeared mysteriously in 1883;

- Editor Salmi Morse, who devoted his life to attempting to stage a play about the last days of Jesus Christ;

- Owner Charles Webb Howard, the ruthless businessman who kept his ties to The Wasp secret;

- Cartoonist J. Henry Barkhaus, destined for greatness, who died at the age of twenty-one;

- Owner Edward Macfarlane, who nearly lost his health piloting the weekly through the shark-infested waters of California politics;

- Owner John P. Jackson, who sold out The Wasp’s independence to the railroads;

- Cartoonists Solly Walter and Charles W. Saalburg, the first Jewish-Americans to work as a professional political cartoonists;

And, of course,

- The fearless Ambrose Bierce, who built The Wasp into the most widely read weekly on the West Coast.

Price: $90, plus $8 S&H

To order, send a check, money order, or credit card number to:

Periodyssey Press
116 Pleasant Street
Suite 20
Easthampton, MA 01027

Or place your order online by writing to: Press@periodyssey.com

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Click here to view the Errata & Revisions for The San Francisco Wasp, An Illustrated History.

Richard Samuel West is the author of Satire on Stone: The Political Cartoons of Joseph Keppler (University of Illinois, 1988), the editor and publisher of Target: The Political Cartoon Quarterly (1981-1987), and a widely recognized authority on American magazines and political cartoons.