Stephen Cullen Carpenter, probably born in Ireland and eventually transplanted to Charleston, South Carolina, in the early part of the nineteenth century, was neither boldly innovative nor particularly perceptive either as a critic or arbiter of aesthetic standards in the magazines he edited and published. The chief importance of his periodicals in the history of American journalism is that they provide information about the tastes and interests of educated people in New York, Philadelphia, and the more isolated Charleston. His particular interests in the history of drama and the American stage also make his magazines valuable repositories for the student of theater.

Few biographical facts can be discovered about Carpenter, either from the periodicals he edited or from secondary sources. Magazine historians Frank Luther Mott and Sam G. Riley refer to Carpenter's reporting of the speeches at Warren Hastings's trial, and his arrival in Charleston, where, with Loring...