Little Review

Little Review The Little Review was an influential avant-garde periodical edited by Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap that published modernist fiction, poetry, criticism, and art between 1914 and 1929. It fostered transatlantic networks connecting writers and artists associated with T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, and Marianne Moore while engaging with literary magazines such as Poetry (magazine), Blast (magazine), and The Dial. The journal’s editors mounted campaigns and legal defenses involving figures like John Quinn and institutions such as the U.S. Postal Service (historical) and courts linked to Judge John Boyle O'Reilly-era jurisprudence.

History

Founded in Chicago in 1914 by Margaret Anderson with early support from contemporaries in the Chicago Renaissance and contributors from Hull-House, the periodical relocated editorial operations to New York and later to London amid World War I and postwar cultural shifts. The magazine’s trajectory intersected with movements including Imagism, Vorticism, and expatriate circles in Paris around salons tied to Gertrude Stein and the Salon de l'Art Moderne. Its publication run encompassed wartime censorship episodes connected to Espionage Act (1917)-era anxieties and transatlantic legal troubles influenced by prevailing libel and obscenity doctrines shaped by cases such as United States v. One Book Called Ulysses.

Editorial and Contributors

Under the joint editorship of Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap, the journal curated contributions from a wide array of modernists: James Joyce, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, Djuna Barnes, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), William Carlos Williams, Gertrude Stein, Katherine Mansfield, Ford Madox Ford, E. E. Cummings, Alfred Jarry, and Max Ernst. Visual artists and typographers who appeared included Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Aleister Crowley (in polemical contexts), and designers linked to Constructivism. Financial and legal support came from patrons and advocates such as John Quinn, literary agents like Edward Marsh, and editors of allied journals including Ezra Pound’s associates at The Egoist and The New Age.

Notable Publications and Controversies

The serial publication of excerpts from James Joyce’s Ulysses provoked one of the periodical’s most famous legal confrontations, intersecting with censorship battles similar to those involving D. H. Lawrence and court decisions such as People v. One Book Called Ulysses-era litigation in the United States and R. v. Penguin Books Ltd.-style trials in the United Kingdom. The Little Review also published manifestos and polemics by Ezra Pound and experimental work that engaged with polemical networks around Vorticism, Futurism, and debates with figures like F. S. Flint and T. E. Hulme. Obscenity prosecutions and public outcry involved legal actors and institutions including attorneys tied to the ACLU's precursors and judges whose rulings reflected contemporary norms influenced by prior cases such as Regina v. Hicklin.

Literary Impact and Influence

The periodical played a central role in establishing transatlantic modernist canons by introducing and championing landmark works and by facilitating dialogues among movements associated with Imagism, Modernisme, and expatriate networks in Paris and London. Its advocacy for experimental narrative techniques influenced novelists and poets linked to High Modernism such as Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, John Dos Passos, Sherwood Anderson, and Djuna Barnes. The Little Review’s editorial practices and typographical experiments informed later small presses and periodicals including Faber and Faber, The Criterion (magazine), Transition (magazine), and postwar little magazines connected to The Paris Review and Granta.

Archives and Preservation

Archival holdings of correspondence, original manuscripts, and bound issues are held in major repositories including the Newberry Library, the Harry Ransom Center, University of Illinois Archives, and the British Library. Special collections feature letters between editors and contributors such as exchanges with James Joyce, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, and Gertrude Stein, and legal papers reflecting prosecutions comparable to materials preserved in the holdings of institutions like Columbia University Rare Book & Manuscript Library and Smithsonian Institution curatorial files. Digital and microfilm facsimiles have been produced by academic presses and university libraries influenced by editorial projects at Yale University Press and Oxford University Press-era editorial scholarship.

Category: Literary magazines Category: Modernist magazines