Harper's Magazine

Another thing I discovered and wanted to share with everybody here not aware of it yet: Harper's Magazine has a great online archive, including Cabell's early writings: http://harpers.org/author/jamesbranchcabell/

The only drawback is of course that you have to subscribe for access ($21/year). However, some (sadly not all) of these old issues are also available via various other archives: http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=harpers

Have fun hunting!

Thanks for the hint, I'm not prepared to get behind the paywall yet but I appreciate knowing it's there.

Would also be good to know which have been anthologised / reprinted elsewhere. I'll check the bibliography at the Silver Stallion site.

ETA There are placeholder sections in the online bib for precisely this sort of information: list of periodical publications, where periodical works are reprinted in non-Cabell books, and so forth. But not yet online.

I found another (and apparently complete) listing of old Harper's Magazine issues online: http://www.unz.org/Pub/Harpers

I can't even begin to understand the man behind that site, Ron Unz, but his archive is a goldmine for everybody interested in old periodicals. Sorry if this is old news – but right now, I'm positively thrilled.

The archive also contains the April 1911 issue of Harper's, featuring Cabell's early short story "The Soul of Mervisaunt". I didn't know Manuel's daughter changed her name over the years – of course, she isn't even Manuel's daughter in this version, which begins: "It is a tale which they narrate in Poictesme, telling how love began between Perion of the Forest, that was a captain of mercenaries, and young Mervisaunt, who was a king's sister."

The navigation of the site is rather cumbersome, but at least you can save individual pages as pdf. The story starts on page 663: http://www.unz.org/Pub/Harpers-1911apr-00663

There is also a beautiful illustration by Howard Pyle for that story: http://www.unz.org/Pub/Harpers-1911apr?View=PDF&apages=0161

And yet another Howard Pyle illustration attributed to "The Soul of Mervisaunt": http://www.americanillustrators.com/artist.php?id=9788 However, I couldn't yet localize this one in the issue.

Pyle of course also illustrated the 1913 edition of "The Soul of Melicent", available online e.g. here: https://archive.org/details/soulofmelicent00cabe But the illustrations are different.

Interestingly, in 1905, English writer Warwick Deeping published a short story called "Mellicent" (note the spelling) in Harper's: http://www.unz.org/Pub/Harpers-1905jan-00257

Again, the illustrator is Howard Pyle: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101076431996;view=1up;seq=202 (and again, I couldn't localize this page at unz.org thanks to the site's navigation, hence the other link. It should be on page 172).

I wonder if Cabell chose the name "Mervisaunt" to avoid confusion with "Mellicent"; or whether his "Melicent" is a direct satire on the typical Harper's stories (or their heroines) of that time. However, I haven't read the tale of her sister yet ... so I can't tell.

Almost certainly "Melicent" was forced upon him by his publishers. This is America.