Pegasus, Vol. 1, No. 1 (January 1923)

Published in January 1923, no. 1 of Pegasus gives readers several clear ways into the magazine. It contains 15 named pieces or sections, beginning with A Sonnet to the Dawn by Katharine Howard, Life by Ernest Walsh, and The Cup by Louisa Stahel. That opening offers a direct path through the issue, but it is not the only one. A reader can follow the printed order, pause over a familiar contributor, or start with a title that catches the eye. No special background is needed. The magazine explains itself gradually through the choices it makes and through the company each piece keeps.

Pegasus begins as a deliberately small San Diego magazine: W. H. Lench is named editor and publisher, and the opening roster balances local coastal imagery with a wider lyric register. Edwin Renold Lane's view of Loma and La Playa anchors the number in the harbor city, while poems by Dorothy Page, Katharine Howard, Ernest Walsh, Amy Sebree Smith, Fred Gronberg, and others move among dawns, ships, desert crossings, and intimate encounters. The closing comment asks for work from a literary public the editor plainly believed was present but dispersed. The named form A Sonnet to the Dawn sits beside shorter songs and descriptive lyrics, making the issue’s craft visible in rhyme, stanza, and carefully managed closure. That combination gives the San Diego number a regional modernity of its own: harbor, desert, city, and intimate address enter print through inherited forms being adjusted to Western subjects.

The contents page also works like a small map. Early entries establish the issue’s first set of voices; around the middle, The Fishing Fleet by W. H. Lench changes the view; the closing stretch reaches Bombast by Fred Gronberg. The works differ in length, subject, and manner, yet their placement creates connections that a simple list of names cannot show. The pleasure comes from those changes. A short piece can clear the air after a longer one, a new voice can redirect the mood, and an unexpected title can make an earlier page look different when the reader thinks back to it.

The contributor list includes Katharine Howard, Ernest Walsh, Louisa Stahel, Edwin Renold Lane, Dorothy Page, W. H. Lench, Yetta Kay Stoddard, and Lila Serles, along with 2 additional contributors. Some readers will arrive looking for a particular name; others will meet these contributors here for the first time. Either approach works. The publication details add useful context: the issue was edited by W. H. Lench, published by W. H. Lench, and issued from San Diego, California. A journal is also a made object, assembled by people deciding what to print, how to order it, and which voices should share a number. Reading from beginning to end lets those choices appear naturally.

The catalog subjects—Los Angeles literary culture, American poetry, Little magazines, Sea and coast, and Love—are useful starting points, especially for searching, but they do not set limits on what a reader may find. For a first visit, begin with A Sonnet to the Dawn by Katharine Howard, turn next to The Fishing Fleet by W. H. Lench, and finish with Bombast by Fred Gronberg. The clean reading edition is designed for that kind of movement. Original scan: 12 PDF pages. Reader’s edition: 20 PDF pages. It keeps the contents in a stable, legible form and makes names and titles easier to find. A source facsimile remains part of the project’s private editorial record, but it is not included in the public upload. What appears here is the reading copy: a practical way to spend time with the issue and discover which pieces invite a return.