A Volume of a 'Different Hue': Transatlantic Print and the Making of the Aurora Borealis, a Quaker Literary Annual

This article directs attention to a short-lived Quaker literary annual, the Aurora Borealis. It was immediately successful on both sides of the Atlantic. However, its editors discontinued their work after a single issue when faced with the opposition of London publishers who saw it as a threat to their domination of the market. The article recovers the history of this unfamiliar volume using two archives located on different sides of the Atlantic. The literary ambitions of a group of Friends were channeled into the production of a publication that modeled itself on a highly popular secular genre while shaping it along denominational lines. The annual's producers borrowed from commercial techniques to advertise and produce a volume that was familiar but nonetheless distinctive due to its nonmetropolitan origins and its Quaker content. The article argues that the existence of the annual enables further speculation about other publishing ventures on both sides of the Atlantic that should be demanding our attention, reimagining the contours of Quaker literary history and transatlantic print.