About Newfoundland Quarterly

Newfoundland Quarterly

Newfoundland Quarterly is a literary and cultural magazine published by Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. Founded in 1901, it is Canada's longest-running magazine, having published continuously — with one brief interruption — for well over a century. Begun as "a literary magazine of interest to Newfoundlanders at home and abroad," it today calls itself "a cultural journal of Newfoundland and Labrador," publishing articles on the province's culture and history, including biography, local history, book reviews, visual art, and poetry. It carries the ISSN 0380-5832.

Overview

The Newfoundland Quarterly — often called simply the Quarterly — occupies a singular place in Canadian publishing: no other Canadian magazine has published for as long. Its pages constitute an unparalleled record of Newfoundland and Labrador's cultural life across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from the pre-Confederation dominion era through provincehood and into the present. Each issue mixes features, columns, interviews, and reviews concerning the history and culture of the province, with attention to biography, local history, visual art, and poetry.

The magazine is owned by Memorial University and published through the Newfoundland Quarterly Foundation, established in 1982. Joan Sullivan is the managing editor. It has received project support from the provincial government's Cultural Economic Development Program — a $20,000 grant in 2011, for example, assisted with production costs — reflecting its recognized role in preserving and telling the province's stories.

History

The Quarterly was founded in 1901 by John J. Evans Sr., a printer and publisher in St. John's, who became its first editor. The provincial government's historical chronology of Newfoundland and Labrador records the magazine's 1901 establishment alongside that year's other landmarks, including Guglielmo Marconi's first transatlantic wireless signal from Signal Hill in St. John's. It was a printer's magazine in the best sense: produced by people who understood the craft of putting words on paper, and sustained by a community that valued the record it kept. Writing about the early years in The Rock Observed: Studies in the Literature of Newfoundland, scholar Patrick O'Flaherty noted that the dominant theme was local history, with excursions into biography, humour, poetry, and storytelling. The magazine was closely linked with the earlier serial publications and Christmas annuals that had been gathering places for Newfoundland's literary activity since the 1880s — a mix of reviews, reports, fiction, and informed local history that made the Quarterly a significant source for the province's cultural life from the start.

In 1940, editorship passed to John Evans Jr., who ran the magazine until it was briefly discontinued in December 1951. In 1953, the Quarterly was purchased and resurrected by Lemuel Janes, also a printer by trade. Janes retired in 1965 and sold the magazine to Creative Printers and Publishers Ltd. In 1981, the magazine was sold to Memorial University of Newfoundland — its current publisher — for the sum of $1, a transaction that secured its future as a university-supported cultural journal. The Newfoundland Quarterly Foundation was established the following year, in 1982, to support its publication.

Across its long run, the magazine has documented the transformation of Newfoundland and Labrador: the final decades of responsible government, the Commission of Government era, Confederation with Canada in 1949, the Smallwood years, the cod moratorium, and the oil era. Its archives are a primary source for historians of the province, and its pages have carried work by generations of Newfoundland writers, scholars, and artists.

The Quarterly's survival across such spans is itself remarkable. Founded when Newfoundland was a self-governing dominion with a population of about 220,000 living in 1,200 communities, it published through two world wars, the Great Depression, the loss of responsible government, and Confederation. The brief discontinuation in December 1951 — during John Evans Jr.'s editorship — lasted less than two years before Lemuel Janes revived it in 1953. The 1981 sale to Memorial University for $1 reflected a recognition that a 80-year-old cultural institution belonged under public stewardship; the creation of the Newfoundland Quarterly Foundation the next year gave it a dedicated support structure. Scholars of Newfoundland book history have noted the Quarterly's close links to the earlier serial publications and Christmas annuals of the late nineteenth century, placing it in a continuous tradition of Newfoundland periodical literature stretching back to the 1880s.

Content

The Newfoundland Quarterly publishes features, columns, interviews, and reviews concerning the history and culture of Newfoundland and Labrador. Its contents span biography, local history, book reviews, visual art, and poetry — a mix that has remained remarkably consistent since the founding editor's day, when local history dominated alongside biography, humour, poetry, and storytelling. The magazine serves as a forum for writing about the province that is serious but accessible, aimed at general readers interested in Newfoundland and Labrador's heritage and contemporary culture.

The magazine's visual art coverage and poetry pages give space to the province's artists and writers, while its historical features draw on archival research and personal recollection alike. For a province with a strong sense of distinct identity, the Quarterly functions as a cultural commons — a place where the conversation about what Newfoundland and Labrador is and has been takes place in print.

Coverage & Audience

The Newfoundland Quarterly serves readers in Newfoundland and Labrador and the province's far-flung diaspora — the "Newfoundlanders at home and abroad" of its founding prospectus. Its audience includes historians, writers, educators, and general readers with an interest in the province's culture, as well as libraries and archives that preserve its long run. Provincial government support for the magazine has explicitly recognized its role in preserving culture and telling the province's stories.

As the province's oldest magazine — and, by the provincial government's description, the second-oldest magazine in Canada — it carries a symbolic weight beyond its circulation: it is an institution of Newfoundland cultural life, and its continued publication is itself a statement about the value the province places on its own story. In 2011, when the province announced the $20,000 Cultural Economic Development Program grant, the minister's statement captured that role directly: the Quarterly "continues to include a variety of features, columns, interviews, and reviews concerning the history and culture of Newfoundland and Labrador," and supporting the organizations that preserve culture and tell the province's stories remains a public commitment. Managing editor Joan Sullivan called the magazine "this vital, living dialogue on the culture and history of Newfoundland and Labrador" — a description that fits a publication now in its second century.

Ownership

The Newfoundland Quarterly is owned by Memorial University of Newfoundland and published through the Newfoundland Quarterly Foundation, established in 1982. It was founded by John J. Evans Sr. in 1901 as a private venture; passed through the hands of John Evans Jr., Lemuel Janes, and Creative Printers and Publishers Ltd.; and was acquired by Memorial University in 1981 for $1. Joan Sullivan is the current managing editor.

Digital Presence

The magazine maintains an online presence at nqonline.ca, where readers can find information about current and past issues and subscriptions. Its history is documented in its Wikipedia entry, in scholarly studies of Newfoundland book history and literature, in the provincial government's chronologies and cultural announcements, and in the archives of Memorial University. The 2011 provincial news release celebrating its Cultural Economic Development Program grant described it as the province's oldest magazine and summarized its continuing mission: features, columns, interviews, and reviews concerning the history and culture of Newfoundland and Labrador.