Eleven issues of The Columns literary magazine have been added to our site thanks to our partner, Chowan University. These issues are some of the earliest iterations of the magazine, beginning with Volume 1, No. 1 in November 1914 and continuing up to Volume 3, No. 4 in May 1917. 

In addition to some student poetry (which tends to be in more structured forms than we might see today), there are also non-fiction pieces, like this essay on the food shortage due to the “European War” or this editorial on how our personalities are formed. The short fiction takes on a wide variety of genres, including fantasy in “A Trip to Fairlyland in the Moon” and portraits of the everyday, as in “A Mischievous Boy.” 

You can read the full batch of The Columns here. To see more materials from Chowan University, you can visit their partner page and their website.