AustLit

Cosmos: An Illustrated Australian Magazine was a monthly literary journal published in Sydney from 1 September 1894 until 31 May 1899. Featuring the work of many well-known colonial Australian writers as well as playing host to a range of more obscure ones; Cosmos offers a vivid insight into the lively colonial Australian literary scene during the final years of the nineteenth century. Though relatively short-lived compared with publications such as the Australian Journal, Cosmos managed to survive—and briefly flourish—in a market that was flooded with many imported journals, including special colonial editions of periodicals such as Britain's Review of Reviews and the American-based Scribner's Magazine, as well as popular local publications such as the Sydney Bulletin. The self-consciousness with which Cosmos considered its position within this marketplace is one of the interesting things about it. All too aware of the ephemerality of many colonial literary enterprises, Cosmos was often explicit in addressing the question of what qualities were necessary for a magazine's survival. 'Our Local Contemporaries,' an article written by Annie Bright for the May 1895 issue, for example, offers a valuable insight into the colonial Australian journal scene, as she works to carve out a place for Cosmos amid Sydney's 'immense quantity of reading matter with its four daily journals, to say nothing of the twenty weekly papers and twenty-two periodicals of diverse kinds.'

Cosmos's founder and first editor was Armand Jerome, a flamboyant figure who became well known in Sydney's bohemian theatrical and literary circles soon after his arrival from America in 1893. Like many who energetically pursued literary careers in colonial Australia, Jerome has been largely forgotten today. But during his lifetime he achieved considerable notoriety—not least in July 1896 when he was exposed as a charlatan and forger. He was imprisoned for three years after several months on the run. He argued at his trial that it was his literary ambition that had led him to a life of crime; a suggestion viewed sceptically by his contemporaries. But whatever his motivations, within a year of coming to Australia, Jerome had become recognised as a 'society journalist,' edited three Australian-focussed books and started what he claimed to be the only literary journal in Australasia at that time.

It was through the insistent cultivation of an Australian literary sensibility and the promotion of a distinctive national identity that Cosmos sought to distinguish itself from other publications. Jerome presented the idea of an Australian national literature as unchartered ground, an unknown territory that needed a magazine like Cosmos to help it become properly defined and settled. 'Does [Australia] realise,' he demanded in the first editorial, 'the fact that it, one of the great sections of the English speaking people, is dependent, but for the Cosmos, upon publishers in other parts of the world? Does it realise that of the vast field of fictional opportunity, the bush, the settlement and the township offer, scarcely an acre has been taken up?' In expressing the importance of developing a distinctive national literature this early editorial reproduces the kinds of clichés found more broadly in the commentaries of the day. 'In fiction as in other branches,' it announces, 'the Cosmos aims at being Australian, and writers, especially of short stories are desired, who will reach beyond the blackfellow and the bushranger yarn, and enter the real sphere of Australian life.' The outback tales of author-adventurers such as Ernest Favenc and Alex Montgomery were certainly a regular feature in its pages. But Cosmos also seemed to move beyond the familiar themes of frontier and South Sea adventure through its emphasis on typically feminine popular literary genres. The fragrant, lyrical poems, short stories and novellas of writers such as Louise Mack appeared alongside romance tales by novelists such as Mrs H. E. Russell and E. L. Sutherland, while many interviews, literary articles and reviews seem directed toward a cultivated, and primarily urban, female audience.

Ethel Turner's 'Women's Department' played an important role in establishing the sophisticated, metropolitan and feminine tone of the journal's early editions, offering notes on fashion, domesticity and social life. Perhaps most significant though, was the way her column brought together the feminine and the literary. Her topics of the day ranged from 'New Woman' novelists, such as Sarah Grand, to the changing role of the heroine in contemporary fiction, and the formulaic nature of women's romance writing. Many articles by other female authors took up similar themes, including, for example, 'Australians in Fiction,' by 'Eric' (Caroline Montefiore) in October 1894, which explores the figure of the 'Australian Girl' in some recent fiction.

Apart from offering space for women's fiction and giving women a critical voice, Cosmos also featured many stories of women's successes—from 'glamour' articles about female actors, singers and gaiety performers on the one hand, to stories of women working in senior professions on the other, such as 'The Sydney Women's College and its Principal' (June 1895). Colonial author and spiritualist Annie Bright wrote many such pieces; she had taken over as editor of Cosmos from the second issue, while Jerome stayed on as manager. Bright retained a focus on Australian femininity and literary themes, nationalism and federation throughout her editorship, as well as writing regular biographical columns, articles on spiritualism and book reviews. Her monthly editorials were at once cosmopolitan and regional in focus, encompassing a wide range of both international and local topics.

In August 1895 Bright cautiously celebrated the magazine's survival in 'Our First Year,' an article that notes the 'daunting experience of so many shipwrecked ventures before us.' From that time, production continued uninterrupted for eight months. Starting in May 1896, however, there was a two-month break, and when publication resumed on 7 July that year, Alex Montgomery was named as editor, and Maxwell Keely as manager. One week later, Armand Jerome disappeared. Despite speculation that Cosmos would close down, it continued publication for several more years, continuing its investment in a cultivated and empowered colonial femininity, despite publishing fewer well known authors, and coming increasingly to rely on long running serials to fill its pages. Even with its eventual closure, Cosmos didn't die out completely; it was incorporated into another of its publisher, Maclardy & Co's, literary publications, Southern Cross: An Illustrated Australasian Magazine. Maxwell Keely stayed on as editor and manager. Despite its more parochial sounding title, Southern Cross was another lively colonial magazine with an investment in literature as well as peculiarly Australian forms of metropolitan femininity and glamour that perhaps reflected, at least in part, something that Cosmos had worked towards developing.

(History of Cosmos Magazine provided by Dr Rachael Weaver, October 2012. Her article, 'Cosmos Magazine and Colonial Feminity' can be accessed here.)