Modernist Journals Project page
Despite its title Le Petit Journal des Refusées is both American and in English. Appearing in San Francisco in 1896 it announced the launch of a new artistic journal that would accept only work rejected elsewhere. This was the only issue. Did it just fail to take off? Was it a one-off joke? A prank? Almost certainly the latter two considering the advertisement in the image below (from January 1902 issue of The Literary Collector).
The contents aren't exactly what you might expect ("I'd love to hunt for angels / And shoot them on the wing") while physically the journal has an odd trapezoidal shape and most surviving copies are slightly different. (The link above has three versions.) There are hand-applied images to a few pages, changes in paper stock (wallpaper according to some sources), and even some with differing content. Despite all the names attached to the various pieces it was actually done by one person.
There's very little background information (though why would there be?). The most substantial appears to be a piece by Johanna Drucker but I can't find an accessible version and have only read the first couple of pages.
Though the credited name is James Marrion that's actually a pseudonym for Gelett Burgess, a San Fransisco artist and poet with a decidely comic sensibililty. I've posted some work of his on this blog before - Burgess Unabridged, The Burgess Nonsense Book and My Maiden Effort. (He wrote the still remembered poem "The Purple Cow".) His account of creating the journal is the last image below.
