Published by Wiley and Putnam, it was edited by George H. Colton, and after his death, beginning with Volume 7, by James Davenport Whelpley.

The first issue of American Review was dated January 1845, though it was likely published as early as October 1844, and intended to promote the Whig candidate Henry Clay, running in the presidential election of 1844.

[2] In May 1846, Poe reviewed Colton's work in The Literati of New York City, published in Godey's Lady's Book.

Poe described Colton's poem "Tecumseh" as "insufferably tedious" but said that the magazine was one of the best of its kind in the United States.

Other works by Poe published in the American Review include "Some Words with a Mummy" and "The Facts in the Case of M.