The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines Volume I: Britain and Ireland 1880-1955

The first of three volumes charting the history of the Modernist Magazine in Britain, North America, and Europe, this collection offers the first comprehensive study of the wide and varied range of 'little magazines' which were so instrumental in introducing the new writing and ideas that came to constitute literary and artistic modernism in the UK and Ireland. In thirty-seven chapters covering over eighty magazines expert contributors investigate the inner dynamics and economic and intellectual conditions that governed the life of these fugitive but vibrant publications. We learn of the role of editors and sponsors, the relation of the arts to contemporary philosophy and politics, the effects of war and economic depression and of the survival in hard times of radical ideas and a belief in innovation. The chapters are arranged according to historical themes with accompanying contextual introductions, and include studies of theNew Age,Blast,theEgoistand theCriterion,New Writing,New Verse, andScrutinyas well as of lesser known magazines such as theEvergreen,Coterie, theBermondsey Book, theMask,Welsh Review, theModern Scot, and theBell. To return to the pages of these magazines returns us a world where the material constraints of costs and anxieties over censorship and declining readerships ran alongside the excitement of a new poem or manifesto. This collection therefore confirms the value of magazine culture to the field of modernist studies; it provides a rich and hitherto under-examined resource which both brings to light the debate and dialogue out of which modernism evolved and helps us recover the vitality and potential of that earlier discussion.

Peter Brooker has taught and held research posts in Universities in the UK, the USA and Europe. He currently holds posts as a Special Professor in the Department of Cultural Studies, University of Nottingham and as Professorial Fellow in the Centre for Modernist Studies, University of Sussex. He has published widely on modern literature, theory and culture and is author of studies of Ezra Pound and Bertolt Brecht as well as the volumes New York Fictions, Modernity and Metropolis, and Bohemia in London. He is co-editor of The Geographies of Modernism and of the forthcoming Handbook of Modernisms and is on the editorial board of Textual Practice, Adaptations, Critical Survey and Keywords. He was appointed a Founding Fellow of the English Association and has served as Chair of the Raymond Williams Society.
Andrew Thacker has taught at the Universities of Ulster and Wolverhampton, and is currently Professor of Twentieth-Century Literature and Director of the Centre for Textual Scholarship at De Montfort University, Leicester. He co-founded the Northern Modernism seminar and is an editor of the journal Literature & History. He has published widely upon modernism, including Moving Through Modernity: Space and Geography in Modernism (2003) and a forthcoming volume on The Imagist Poets. With Peter Brooker he directs the Modernist Magazines Project.

General Introduction, Peter Brooker and Andrew ThackerPart One VICTORIAN PRECURSORSIntroduction1. The Pre-History of the 'Little Magazine', John Plunkett and Kyriaki Hadjiafxendi2. In the Beginning There Was the Germ: The Pre-Raphaelites and 'Little Magazines', Marysa DemoorPart Two FIN-DE-SIÈCLE VENTURES (1884-1905)Introduction3. Aestheticism and Decadence: the Yellow Book (1894-97); the Chameleon (1894); and the Savoy (1896), Laurel Brake4. Symbolism in British 'Little Magazines': the Dial (1889-1897); the Pageant (1896-7); and the Dome (1897-1900), David Peters Corbett5. 'The Arts and Crafts Movement': the Century Guild Hobby Horse (1884-94); the Studio (1893- ); the Evergreen (1895-6); and the Acorn (1905), Imogen HartPart Three EARLY STATEMENTS (1899-1915)Introduction6. Yeats and the Celtic Revival: Beltaine (1899-1900); Samhain (1901-1908); Dana (1904-5); and the Arrow (1906-9), Alex Davis7. The New Poetry, Georgians and Others: the Open Window (1910-11); the Poetry Review (1912-15); Poetry and Drama (1913-14); and New Numbers (1914), Dominic HibberdPart Four TRANSITIONSIntroduction8. Democracy and Modernism: the New Age under A. R. Orage (1907-1922), Ann L. Ardis9. Ford Madox Ford and the English Review (1908-37), Cliff Wulfman10. The London Mercury (1919-1939) and Other Moderns, Matthew HuculakPart Five INTERVENTIONS (1911-19)Introduction11. Gender and Modernism: the Freewoman (1913); the New Freewoman (1911-12); and the Egoist (1914-19), Jean-Michel Rabaté12. The 'Little Magazine' as Weapon: BLAST (1914-15), Andrzej Gasiorek13. Harmony, Discord, and Difference: Rhythm (1911-13); the Blue Review (1913); and the Signature (1915), Peter BrookerPart Six EDITORS AND PROGRAMMESIntroduction14. The Idea of a Literary Review: T. S. Eliot and the Criterion (1922-39), Jason Harding15. Enemies of Cant: the Athenaeum and the Adelphi (1923-48), Michael Whitworth16. Standards of Criticism: the Calendar of Modern Letters (1925-7), John Lucas17. The Cause of Poetry: Thomas Moult and Voices (1919-21); Harold Monro and the Monthly Chapbook (1919-25), Mark Morrisson18. Desmond MacCarthy, Life and Letters (1928-35), and Bloomsbury Modernism, Jane GoldmanPart Seven INTO THE 1920s: DISPERSAL AND DIFFERENCEIntroduction19. Aftermath of War: Coterie (1919-21); New Coterie (1925-27); Robert Graves and the Owl (1919-23), Andrew Thacker20. Literature and the Visual Arts: Art and Letters (1917-20) and the Apple (1920-22), Rebecca Beasley21. Cinema and Visual Culture: Close Up (1927-33), Laura Marcus22. Interventions in the Public Sphere: Time and Tide (1920-30) and the Bermondsey Book (1923-1930), Jane Dowson23. Cultural Criticism at the Margins: Wyndham Lewis, the Tyro (1920-21), and the Enemy (1927-29), Paul Edwards24. Nostalgia and Reaction: Austin O. Spare and Form (1916-17; 1921-22); the Golden Hind (1922-24); and the Decachord (1924-31), Stephen RogersPart Eight COMMITMENT TO THE NEW: THE 1930sIntroduction25. Cambridge Magazines and Unfinished Business: Experiment (1928-30); the Venture (1928-30); and Cambridge Left (1933-34), Scott McCracken26. Art and Politics in the 1930s: the European Quarterly (1934-35); Left Review (1934-38); and Poetry and the People (1938-40), Peter Marks27. Poetry Then: Geoffrey Grigson and New Verse (1933-39); Julian Symons and Twentieth Century Verse (1937-9), Stan Smith28. A New Prose: John Lehmann and New Writing (1936-40), Françoise Bort29. 'National papers please reprint'. Surrealist Magazines in Britain: Contemporary Poetry and Prose (1936-7); London Bulletin (1938-40); and Arson: An Ardent Review (1942), Rod MenghamPart Nine BEYOND THE METROPOLIS: NATIONAL AND MIGRANT VOICES IN THE 1930s AND 1940sIntroduction30. Wales (1937-39); the Welsh Review (1939-), Chris Hopkins31. From Revolution to Republic: Magazines, Modernism, and Modernity in Ireland: the Klaxon (1923); the Irish Statesman (1923-30); the Dublin Magazine (1923-58); To-Morrow (1924); Ireland To-Day (1936-38); and the Bell (1940-54), Frank Shovlin32. Modernism and National Identity in Scottish Magazines: the Evergreen (1895-97); the Northern Review (1924); the Modern Scot (1930-36); Scottish Art and Letters (1944-1950); the Scottish Chapbook (1922-3); Outlook (1936-1937); and the Voice of Scotland (1938-39; 1945; 1955), Cairns Craig33. A New 'Art of the Theatre': Gordon Craig's the Mask (1908-28) and the Marionette (1918-19), Olga Taxidou34. Modernism as 'Uninfected Discourse': Laura Riding, Epilogue (1935-38) and Focus (1935), Mark JacobsPart Ten THE CALL TO CRITICISM AND MODERNIST DESTINIESIntroduction35. 'Say not the struggle naught availeth': F. R. Leavis and Scrutiny (1932-53), Sean Matthews36. Cyril Connolly's Horizon (1940-50) and the End of Modernism, Sean Latham37. Poetry London (1939-1951) and Indian Writing (1940-42): the Apocalyptic Poets, 'New Modernism', and 'The Progressive View of Art', James KeeryBibliography