Title:
The Dome: A Quarterly Containing examples of All the Arts
Date of Publication:
1897 – 1900
Place(s) of Publication:
London, England
Frequency of Publication:
Quarterly
Circulation:
Unknown
Publisher:
The Unicorn Press
Physical Description:
Each edition of The Dome has four sections to it (five if the advertisements are included). These sections include: “Architecture and Sculpture,” “Literature,” “Drawing, Painting, and Engraving,” and “Music.” Each section had illustrations to accompany the text. Within the musical section, many times actual sheet music would appear to accompany the song lyrics. The advertisements follow the publication and usually take up the last fifteen to twenty pages of the magazine.
Price:
1 shilling per issue
Editor(s):
Earnest J. Oldmeadow
Associate Editor(s):
None
Libraries with Complete Original Issues:
Wake Forest ZSR Library (no. 1-5, v. 1-7), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (no. 1-5, v. 1,6,7), Duke University (no. 1-5), University of Kentucky (no. 1-5, v. 1-7)
Reprint Editions:
PDFs available online at the Modernist Journals Project and the Modernist Magazines Project.
The Dome: A Quarterly Containing Examples of all the Arts was first published by the Unicorn Press in 1897 as a quarterly publication. After five issues of being a quarterly magazine it became a monthly publication. The first five issues were published with a higher quality paper, which made these first issues more book-like. In the first issues the magazine was divided into subcategories: architecture, literature, drawing painting and engraving, and music. The third issue published the warning, “Advertisers are respectfully requested to note that only announcements of literary or artistic interest can be inserted in The Dome.” The first five issues were published dark brown or tan in color and in an underwhelming and plain fashion without any decorations on the outside cover, while the later monthly issues were published in a more navy color, while also losing the stiffer more card board like paper cover. After the monthly editions began, other changes followed to the magazine as well besides just the cover color. The later issues lost the typified categorization like ‘music’ and ‘literature,’ and broadened into a more open format. The more frequent publications also led to an American edition. The Dome published a wide array of material, varying from poems by Yeats to essays on Tchaikovsky.
Although The Dome lacks an official manifesto, it does offer one of sorts, even if it is an ironic one. In the first issue of The Dome editor Earnest J. Oldmeadow writes in a section entitled “Reviews and Notices” a mock review of the little magazine itself. He starts the review by saying,
“As there are already quite twice as many magazines in existence as there ought to be, we are a little sorry that the Editor of this latest addition to their numbers has not condescended to spare half-a-dozen pages for an account of his Aims. He probably imagines that the very unwieldy sub-title tells the public quite enough; and indeed, in one sense it tells them too much.”
Earnest J. Oldmeadow (1867 – 1949)
Editor
Earnest J. Oldmeadow was born in Chester, England in 1867 and died in a London hospital in 1949. During his earlier life Oldmeadow was a non-conformist minister. After becoming the editor of The Dome, however, his religious views began to change and he converted to Catholicism at the age of thirty-three. He had an interest in music, which readily displayed itself in the pages of The Dome, and from 1900 t0 1904 Oldmeadow was the music critic for The Outlook. Oldmeadow wrote columns for the The Dome under two different pseudonyms, J.E. Woodmeald (an anagram) and L.A. Corbeille. Woodmeald contributed plays to the magazines while Corbeille contributed essays on music or literature. The Dome was largely Oldmeadow’s endeavor: he supported and financed it himself, although it is thought that he must have certainly had some backing by Alice Meynell. Oldmeadow gathered contributions from authors like Symons and Yeats based on his relationships to them and his connections within a literary circle contributed to by Alice Meynell and others.
Jane Austen
Review of her “Emma”
William Blake
“Two Illustrations of Imitation of Eclogue I”
Hiroshige
“A Landscape.” A color-print
“A View of Temples”
“A View of Tokaido.” A color-print
Alice Meynell
“Cradle Song”
“Love Alone Will Stay”
Arthur Symons
“An Autumn City”
“Ballet, Pantomime, and Poetic Drama”
“Bayreuth: Notes on Wagner”
“From La Vida es Sueño”
“The Lover of the Queen of Sheba”
“Prologue-Before the Theater”
“Spain: To Josefa”
W.B. Yeats
“Aodh Pleads with the Elemental Powers”
“Aodh to Dectora”
“The Desire of Man and of Woman”
“Dust Hath Closed Helen’s Eye”
“The Irish Literary Theatre, 1900”
“The Philosophy of Shelley’s Poetry”
“The Song of Mongan”
“A Symbolic Artist and the Coming of Symbolic Art”
“Symbolism in Modern Poetry”
Jackson, Jeffrey B., and Dana L. Jemison. The Dome: Complete Index, 1897-1900. San Francisco, CA: Quat’z’Arts, 2007. Print.
Images. Modernist Journals Project. Brown University & The University of Tulsa, n.d. Web. 21 Sept. 2012.
Images. Modernist Magazines Project. De Montfort University & University of Sussex. Web. 18 Jul 2016.
Sullivan, Alvin. British Literary Magazines. The Victorian and Edwardian Age, 1837-1913. London, England: Greenwood, 1984. Print.
West, Paul. “The Dome. An Aesthetic Periodical of the 1890’s.” Book Collector VI.6 (1957): 160-69. Print.
“The Dome” compiled by Clinton Mann (Class of ’13, Davidson College)