The Little Review

The Little Review
Title	The Little Review
Editor	Margaret Anderson
Editor title	Editor
Founder	Margaret Anderson
Founded	1914
Finaldate	1929
Country	United States
Based	Chicago; New York
Language	English

The Little Review was an avant-garde American literary magazine founded in 1914 that published modernist literature, experimental prose, and radical criticism. It became a crucial forum for writers associated with the modernist movements in Europe and North America, fostering early appearances of major figures and provoking legal battles over obscenity. The magazine's editorial ambition intersected with cultural debates in cities and institutions across the United States, Britain, and continental Europe.

History

Margaret Anderson launched the magazine in Chicago in 1914 after connections with patrons in Chicago, New York City, and Boston helped secure contributors. Early issues featured work by expatriates linked to Paris salons and networks surrounding figures such as Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, T. S. Eliot, and D. H. Lawrence. In 1916 Anderson relocated editorial production to New York City before moving with co-editor Jane Heap to Paris in the early 1920s, engaging circles that included Sylvia Beach, Adrienne Monnier, Ford Madox Ford, and Leonard Woolf. The magazine's run spanned World War I and the interwar period, intersecting with events like the Easter Rising and the aftermath of the Treaty of Versailles insofar as expatriate networks and censorship debates crossed national lines. Economic pressures compounded by legal actions and changing readership led to the magazine's cessation in 1929.

Editorial Leadership and Contributors

Margaret Anderson served as founder and principal editor, with Jane Heap as co-editor and artistic director; both cultivated relationships with publishers and literary figures such as Vladimir Nabokov (later commentator), John Quinn (collector and patron), Alfred Stieglitz (photographer and promoter), Mina Loy, H. D. (Hilda Doolittle), Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Carl Sandburg, and Ezra Pound who acted as a critic and foreign correspondent. The magazine printed translations and essays by continental writers including Marcel Duchamp, Henri Bergson, André Breton, Paul Éluard, and James Joyce (notably serialized material), along with reviews by editors and contributors tied to publishing houses like Viking Press, Scribner's, Alfred A. Knopf, and Chatto & Windus. Visual art and design contributions connected the periodical to galleries and movements represented by Alfred Stieglitz's 291 Gallery, Cubism advocates around Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, and Dada networks associated with Tristan Tzara.

Content and Literary Significance

The magazine published experimental fiction, serialized revolutionary novels, manifestos, poetry, drama, and critical essays that positioned it at the center of transatlantic modernism. Serialized publication of excerpts by James Joyce introduced anglophone readers to portions of Ulysses prior to book publication, while essays and poetry helped establish reputations for T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, H. D., Marianne Moore, and William Carlos Williams. Coverage of continental modernists connected readers to Surrealism leaders like André Breton and visual artists such as Marcel Duchamp, linking literary and visual avant-gardes to institutions including The Dial readership, Little magazines networks, and university collections at Harvard University and Columbia University. Critical debates published in the magazine engaged editors and critics associated with The Athenaeum, The Times Literary Supplement, and the American press around aesthetic movements and publishing ethics.

Controversies and Legal Issues

Publication of sexually explicit and stylistically transgressive material prompted legal action, most famously the U.S. obscenity prosecution related to serialized passages from James Joyce's Ulysses. Prosecutors invoked statutes used in other high-profile cases involving works by D. H. Lawrence and disputes similar to trials over Lady Chatterley's Lover. The trial mobilized literary defenders including collectors like John Quinn and critics from journals such as The Nation and Nation-affiliated writers, and involved courts in New York City and federal appeals that raised questions also debated in legal circles connected to the American Civil Liberties Union. Financial strain from fines, legal fees, and postal censorship decisions by the United States Post Office contributed to operational difficulties. The magazine's confrontations with printers, distributors, and bookstore chains echoed controversies surrounding avant-garde publications and their patrons in London, Paris, and Dublin.

Publication Format and Distribution

Issued as a monthly and later irregular periodical, the magazine combined text, illustrations, and layout experiments that echoed typographic innovations promoted by designers allied to Alfred A. Knopf and printers who worked for Viking Press. Distribution relied on subscriptions, literati networks in New York City and Chicago, and bookshop consignments in cultural hubs including Paris's rue de l'Odéon, London's Bloomsbury district, and salons run by Sylvia Beach. The editors used serialized fiction strategies to attract readers and to collaborate with small presses and continental printers; postal frankings and newsstand sales were intermittently impeded by censorship, causing shifts toward private circulation and exhibition in galleries like 291 Gallery and literary gatherings at Cranes and salon venues.

Legacy and Influence

The magazine's legacy endures in its role in the careers of modernist figures and in shaping debates about literary form, censorship, and publishing. Archives of correspondences, manuscripts, and layouts appear in institutions such as The New York Public Library, University of Pennsylvania, Smithsonian Institution, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, and British Library collections, informing scholarship connected to modernism, legal history, and textual studies like genealogies of Ulysses transmission. Its influence is cited in studies of periodicals including The Dial, Poetry, Blast, Transition, and later little magazines such as Partisan Review and New Directions; its name recurs in discussions of avant-garde networks that include salons and presses tied to figures like Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, and Marianne Moore. Contemporary literary journals and university programs studying modernism and censorship continue to reference the magazine's editorial daring and archival materials in exhibitions, dissertations, and collections at institutions like Columbia University's Butler Library and Harvard University's Houghton Library.

Category:Literary magazines published in the United States