The Harvard Monthly was a literary magazine of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, beginning October 1885 until suspending publication following the Spring 1917 issue.

Thomas Parker Sanborn was an American poet. The eldest son of abolitionist, social scientist, and memorialist of American transcendentalism Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, Thomas became a close friend of philosopher George Santayana and was a food model for the protagonist in Santayana's only novel, The Last Puritan. With five college friends, Thomas founded The Harvard Monthly.