Le Petit Journal des Refusées

Deliberately amateurish and playful in content and design, this independent magazine was created by the humorist Gelett Burgess under the pseudonym of James Marrion 2nd.

In a 1904 letter to Houghton Library benefactor Thomas Newell Metcalf, Burgess wrote that he was “rather ashamed of the thing”, suggesting his work was part of “the riot of foolish magazinelets then prevalent”.

[6] Le Petit Journal des Refusées was printed on trapezoidal-shaped pieces of old wallpaper, resulting in unique copies with page colours ranging from primarily black-and-white to gold and greens.

[15] As suggested by its title, Le Petit Journal des Refusées masquerades as a compilation of works by women authors[16] that have been rejected by a minimum of three other publications.

[19] Le Petit Journal des Refusées parodies the high-art literary magazines of the Decadent Era by imitating and exaggerating their graphic style through the hand-drawn techniques of popular print culture.

[20] In addition to European literary and artistic works, Burgess was also influenced by a range of publications from the United States – and in particular, the San Francisco Bay Area.

Le Petit Journal des Refusées drew readers from subscribers of The Wave, The Lark and The Wasp, the San Francisco publications for which Burgess also wrote.

[29] Critics have argued for the magazine's awareness and skillful manipulation of nineteenth century print cultural values, as well as its contributions as an early predictor of modernist trends.

[33] Le Petit Journal des Refusées’ “proto-Cubist and proto-Dadaist visuals” provided a lead-in for other little magazines to carry the trend further, even though Burgess may have been unaware of this effect at the time.