Wolfer, Maurice (1861 – 1921), ed. North American Weekly. Vol XVII, nos. 15, 16, 17, 18, 47 (1898-99). Each issue is 20 pp.; approx. 12 x 9 in. In good to very good condition with tears, creased, minor foxing, and some loose covers and pages.

Five issues of this periodical comprised of plundered material, which was billed as “an illustrated family journal for instruction, and amusement.” Although these issues are supposedly from volume XVII, we suspect the numbering is spurious. 1898 would have been the second year of the magazine's publication.

The editor, Maurice Wolfer was an Austrian immigrant who had recently transformed himself from an artist to a publisher. The Wolfer Printing Company would develop into a commercial jobber specializing in trade catalogues and, occasionally, long serial novels. (For more details on Wolfer, see our offering of Imprisoned with the Dead.) The cover illustration is stylistically similar to the illustrations for the dime novels Wolfer published, and unlike those, this one is signed, though we cannot make it out precisely. “Willis,” perhaps?

The publication history of the North American Weekly is confusing. It was incorporated in Chicago in 1896 – the same year Wolfer declared himself a publisher. The incorporators were Theodore H. Watteyne, his wife Lucie, and Richard Schoenfield.

The Fourth Estate, 18 June 1896, p. 11.

Schoenfield is too common a name to trace, but Theodore Watteyne (1869–1922) left many tracks. He was born in Connecticut to a Belgian immigrant, seems to have lived a peripatetic life. He appears in genealogical records at a wide range of address, mostly in the New York area, including Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Hoboken, and pursuing a variety of professions. He is listed in the 1892 Milwaukee directory as a bookkeeper and 1898 Cincinnati directory as a bartender, and the 1902 Brooklyn directory as a clerk. Other sources list him working as a merchant, a clerk, a waiter, and a photographer. All of this indicates either that the founders of the North American Weekly sold it quickly to Wolfer or that he used them as a front to hide his ownership, though by 1901 he was proud to own it:

Advertiser's rate book...1901. St. Louis: Nelson Chesman & Co., 1901), p. 156.

The contents of the periodical appear to be pirated in their entirety. Among the features is a serial novel by British writer Adeline Sergeant (1851–1904). This suggests a possible point of origin for the dime novels Wolfer published. As a literary pirate, Wolfer might not have been at the level of John Lovell. But we expect that further investigation into his operations will yield very interesting results.

[See our offering of Imprisoned with the Dead here.]

Producing the North American Weekly, American Printer 45 (February 1908) p. 647

At any rate, copies of the North American Weekly appear to be very rare. We have found no institutional holdings.

Selected References

“Wolfer Press,” American Printer 45 (February 1908) p. 646-7.