The year 1857 was one of great financial distress, and the magazine felt something of this influence even before it was published, for it was intended to bring it out earlier than its first number actually appeared. It was in May that the preliminary arrangements were made and Lowell secured as editor. As late, however, as the end of that month, he was writing to a foreign correspondent that the editorship was a dead secret. But as we have seen he had interested himself in the venture from the outset. From time to time after his attempt with the _Pioneer_ he had revolved in his mind plans for magazines. It is safe to say that few prominent writers in America, Longfellow and Cooper being the chief exceptions, failed to dream of launching some vessel of this sort that should be freighted with the best of literature, and the initiative in almost all the cases of important magazines has been taken by the author rather than by the publisher. We have perhaps come to the close of the period when a new monthly magazine seems essential for the carrying of American thought and letters, and enterprise of this sort is more likely to seek an outlet in weekly journalism; but the men of letters who were at the front in the middle of the century not only had strong intellectual sympathy with the brilliant _Blackwood_ of that day,--Lowell in his correspondence repeatedly uses the familiar form _Maga_ when referring to the _Atlantic_,--and had been brought up on _Tait_, _The London Journal_, _Fraser_, and other vehicles of contemporaneous English and Scottish letters, but they demanded some direct, open means of reaching readers, for they had a great deal to say, which was ill-adapted to daily journalism and for which they could not wait till it should cool for book publication. The conditions were favorable also from the point of view of the publisher, and Phillips & Sampson were in a good position to know this. They were aware that the leading writers were in their neighborhood. Washington Irving was an old man, and Mr. Bryant by his associations was rather of New England than of New York. Excepting these two the men of national distinction, Emerson, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Prescott, Motley, Lowell, were New Englanders, and men known by these to have large gifts, Holmes, Higginson, Thoreau, Cabot, Norton, who were chiefly relied on to make the early numbers, were their neighbors and friends, while the commanding reputation of Mrs. Stowe could at once be counted on to give éclat to any magazine with which she was connected. Besides, the business of this house, which was largely that of a jobbing house, so called, that is, a house which sold miscellaneous books from whatever publishers all over the country, was of such a nature as to create a confidence in the existence of a widespread audience of intelligent readers.