PBA Galleries

Spring 1940 (Vol. XXIV, No. 2). 75pp.+ ads. Extensively illustrated with WPA-type Block Prints and etchings. Original decorative wrappers. 

• 15 year-old James Baldwin, who was on the Magpie Literary  Staff, wrote the illustrated short story “Peace On Earth” (Pages 45-48), an early appearance in print.
• Richard Avedon, the future famed photographer, who was on the Associate Board of the magazine, did not, surprisingly contribute a photo, but rather 3 poems (“Seasonal”. “Realist”. "Wamder;ist") and a short story (‘Early Dusk’)

The handsomely-produced Magpie was probably the most significant public high school literary and art journal of the Depression and World War II era.  From 1920 to 1950 Clinton High had the most amazing group of adolescent graduates of any public school in America - besides Baldwin and Avedon:  African-American artists Robert Blackburn and Romare Bearden and poet Countee Cullen; Paddy Chayefsky,  Edward Bernays, Richard Condon, Will Eisner, Walter Iler, Bruce Jay Friedman, Bill Graham, Stanley Kramer, Daniel Schorr, Neil Simon, Laurence Tisch, and Lionel Trilling. Many of these future luminaries were Magpie contributors.