End of Scribner's

From its founding in 1887 until 1928 Scribner's Magazine appeared in an ugly yellow cover designed by Stanford White, became noted for its literary discoveries. Scribner's published Richard Harding Davis' most famous short story, Gallegher, Stephen Crane's The Open Boat, Bret Harte's A Drift From Redwood Camp. It was the first big magazine to print a short story of Ernest Hemingway's (The Killers), first to publish Thomas Wolfe (An Angel on the Porch), whom the magazine and publishing house (Charles Scribner's Sons) nurtured until a year before his death last summer.

Year and a half ago brisk, self-confident Harlan Logan, who had become editor in 1936, bought Scribner's from the publishing house and set out to make it something between a literary magazine, which it had been, and a popular-appeal "slick." His goal was 350,000 circulation. But timely articles, biographical sketches and portrait covers could not boost the figure much beyond 100,000--and Scribner's lost its literary reputation. Although Publisher Logan cut operating losses from $25,000 to $700 a month, he never turned a profit. Last week, in its May issue, Scribner's proudly and nostalgically published a portion of Thomas Wolfe's last book, republished his first story. Same day it sadly announced it did not have enough working capital to put out an issue in June.

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