Little Magazine, BIG STORIES

A look at the significant, memorable, prescient articles and authors from a century of Reader’s Digest

- Caroline Fanning

BY OUR VERY rough calculations, Reader’s Digest has published some 35,000 articles in nearly 1,200 issues. Our century-long table of contents features stories of every stripe, from short essays to sprawling book excerpts. And that’s not counting all the jokes, anecdotes, and other elements that help make what DeWitt Wallace called his “little magazine”.

These small pages have held some very big names, including US presidents, first ladies, world leaders, poets, comedians, sports legends, musicians, inventors and, indeed, the biggest contributors of all, everyday people with a story to tell. These are some of our proudest moments.

DeWitt Wallace didn’t finish college, but he never stopped learning.

How to Keep Young Mentally

By Mary B. Mullett, from the American Magazine, February 1922

The first article in the first issue highlighted inventor Alexander Graham Bell and his belief in lifelong learning: “The first essential of any real education is to observe. Observe! Remember! Compare!” It was an apt beginning, reflecting our self-educated founder’s endless curiosity.

DOES TOBACCO INJURE THE HUMAN BODY?

By Irving Fisher, from the Dearborn Independent, November 1924