Description
Collector's Note – Why This Issue Matters
The September 10, 1955 issue of The New Yorker arrives four years into the tenure of William Shawn, who had succeeded founder Harold Ross upon his death in December 1951 and would go on to edit the magazine for another three decades. Shawn's early years represented both a continuity with the Ross tradition and a quiet deepening of the magazine's literary and journalistic ambitions — this was the period during which The New Yorker consolidated its position as the most serious, and seriously read, general-interest magazine in America. A September issue from 1955 sits at the threshold of autumn in New York, and the magazine's editorial rhythms were always keenly attuned to the city's seasonal life — the return from summer, the reopening of cultural institutions, the resumption of the social calendar that the magazine both documented and helped shape. For collectors building around vintage New Yorker issues from the Shawn era, early issues from his editorship carry the particular interest of a publication finding its next great chapter.
The cover is the work of Perry Barlow, a cartoonist and cover artist who contributed to The New Yorker for decades beginning in the late 1920s. Barlow was one of the magazine's most dependable visual voices — his cover illustrations and interior cartoons shared a dry, observational wit and a fondness for domestic and suburban American life rendered with gentle irony. His work is squarely in the tradition of mid-century American magazine illustration, and issues bearing his covers are collected both as New Yorker artifacts and as examples of that broader graphic tradition. The "full theme cover" designation in the listing indicates a cover organized around a single illustrated scene or concept rather than a portrait, which is the standard New Yorker format and the form in which Barlow consistently worked.
September 1955 falls during a period of pronounced American cultural confidence and underlying tension — the postwar economic boom was fully underway, the suburbs were expanding rapidly, television was reshaping domestic life, and the Civil Rights Movement was gathering toward its watershed moments. The Montgomery Bus Boycott would begin that December. The New Yorker of this period engaged these currents with characteristic indirection, through fiction, criticism, and the accumulated texture of its editorial voice. Among surviving magazines from 1955, issues of The New Yorker remain among the most consistently rewarding for collectors interested in mid-century American literary and cultural history.
About the Publication
The New Yorker, founded by Harold Ross in 1925 and edited from 1952 onward by William Shawn, was by the mid-1950s the defining American magazine of literary fiction, long-form journalism, criticism, humor, and illustration. Its format — fiction, poetry, "Talk of the Town," profiles, criticism, cartoons, and commissioned cover art — had been largely fixed since the magazine's early years and was, by 1955, instantly recognizable to a broad, educated readership that extended well beyond New York City. The magazine made no effort to be comprehensive in its news coverage; its ambition was depth, precision, and wit, and it attracted writers and artists who shared those values. Its covers, commissioned from a rotating group of illustrators, gave the magazine a visual identity unlike any other American periodical of the era.
Key Highlights Inside
- Cover illustration by Perry Barlow, a longtime New Yorker contributor whose work exemplifies the magazine's mid-century illustrative tradition.
- The standard editorial mix of the William Shawn era: fiction, poetry, "Talk of the Town," long-form profiles or reportage, criticism, and cartoons — all reflecting the magazine at a moment of sustained editorial distinction.
- Period advertising that documents the consumer culture and visual language of mid-1950s America, which serious collectors of the era treat as editorial content in its own right.
- Note: Specific interior articles, fiction, cartoons, and named contributors for this issue are unconfirmed beyond what the listing states. Collectors researching the precise contents would benefit from consulting archived New Yorker tables of contents.
Condition & Rarity
Newsstand origin with no address label is the preferred configuration for collectible New Yorker issues from this period, and it is the less common one — the magazine's subscription base was substantial, and labeled copies are the dominant survivors in the market. Good condition with minor wear is an accurate and realistic grade for a seventy-year-old staple-bound weekly; the lightweight paper stock The New Yorker used in the 1950s is prone to tanning and edge brittleness over time, and copies that have remained genuinely readable and displayable after seven decades represent the better end of what survives. The absence of a plastic protective sleeve means the issue has been stored without an additional barrier against dust and handling — not unusual for copies that have spent decades in private collections or libraries, but worth noting for anyone considering long-term preservation. When assessing any surviving copy of this issue, the key attributes to evaluate are the color integrity and surface condition of the Barlow cover, the flexibility of the interior pages, and the security of the spine staples.
Looking for More Issues Like This?
Perry Barlow covers from the 1950s are genuinely appealing artifacts of mid-century American illustration, and clean newsstand copies of The New Yorker from this decade are harder to find than their abundance might suggest. If this issue has already found a home, the New Yorker collection at OriginalMagazines.com regularly surfaces issues from the Shawn era worth serious attention. For collectors with a broader interest in mid-decade American culture, the 1955 magazine collection spans multiple titles and offers a rich cross-section of the year from several different editorial vantage points.