Little Reviews Anthology. By Denys Val Baker. (Allen and Um,
Ss. 6d.)
IN Mr. Val Baker's competent account of the little review sinc 1914 he claims that they reflect the spirit of a literary period f more accurately than the popular publications. It is true au the misunderstood wallflowers of the glossy magazines have bee winning their Bravingtons in much the same way for the pas thirty years, and that nobody could find a resemblance betwee the little reviews of the 1914 period (e.g., Blast) and the revidn of the present war from which Mr. Val Baker's anthology has he compiled. The original little review financed by Margaret Andes had great value as an outlet for the early writings of T. S. Ell Wyndham Lewis, and for publishing Ulysses in instalments us this contribution was responsible for its confiscation. Anoth•
serious review Signature was started by D. H. Lawrence and the Middleton Murrys in 1915. For this Lawrence begged Lady Cynthia Asquith " to subscribe and find out one or two people who care about the real living truth of things ; for God's sake not people who only trifle and don't care." Signature died of penury, but Murry was later responsible for the successful Adelphi. Two other reviews which both help to form and to reflect the Zeitgeist were the international Transition, which published Joyce's work in progress, and in the 'thirties Lehmann's New Writing, with its working-class contributors and stories of social struggles in mines, .factories, the Spanish War and Burmese tea-plantations. This essay is a useful précis of the subject and the complementary anthology (1939-43 only) is very readable. Its best contributors are already fairly well known, e.g., the late Alun Lewis's poem " All Day it Has Rained " and W. R. Rodger's delightful " Stormy Day," but Keith Vaughan's " Exiles in Khaki." reprinted from the less popular Oasis, beautifully conveys the sense of isolation from " real life " which some serving men seem to feel so painfully.
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