Comments by Ferrick Gray
Something most have forgotten about, but more than likely have never heard of—one of the early modernist periodicals, The Egoist. I have printed a few of these publications to read. The main reason was for the input made by Pound and Eliot, two of the men of 1914 so they say. Pound suggested the change of name from The New Freewoman founded by Dora Marsden to The Egoist and succeeded in making it more of a literary review rather than a feminist journal. It is interesting that subscriptions dropped greatly over its publication from 1914 to 1919.
The Egoist had the same format with the same editor, a certain Dora Marsden who later became the contributing editor with Harriet Weaver taking over. I suppose there must have been some editorial agreement for her to continue with the lead article. Each edition was twenty pages, but I am unsure of its actual dimensions, it was printed fortnightly, but this varied over the years. Although lacking in popularity in its final years, it is now considered to have been England’s most important modernist periodical.
The aspect that I like is its layout. A very professional publication by any standard. The amazing feat was how they managed to fill those twenty pages and have the whole thing ready to go every fourteen days. Even today with computer technology, you rarely see the same standard and consistency of production.
There were the typical articles that you expect of a literary review, and these also appeared in the other many reviews available at the time. Some have survived to this day including The Times Literary Supplement and The New Criterion. We find various reviews and comments, criticism, art, book reviews, poetry and letters to the editor. One of the purposes of these reviews was to get new writers noticed, one of Pound’s activities for many years even after The Egoist had run its course.
Personally, I do not go much on the long and rather dull leading article and somewhere I read Pound complaining about it and was not enthused about Marsden’s long and boring articles being the first. The reality is that there would have been a lot of people who enjoyed this because this was the way the people kept up with what was happening. They may not hold much interest now, but times have changed and so too likes and dislikes. You will never keep everyone happy.
The new name sounded a bit odd, but keep in mind Pound suggested the name, and he could and did come across as one who was only interested in his opinion and had a comment for everything. A very colorful character indeed, but also very influential. The use of the title was that it was the writer’s opinion that mattered.
It may be surprising that there were so many of these periodicals around, all competing with each other from England and America. The Dial was very successful and others like Blast did not succeed at all for various reasons.
Fact is that some still survive and often they are accused of intellectual snobbery, but generally that was how they were meant to be taken, they were for the intellectuals. The best in critical reviews!
For more information on modernist periodicals, check this link. It will take you to The Egoist, but you will find a whole host of periodicals on this site. Something interesting from the past and definitely worth reading.
The image below shows its general appearance, and this front page is from the final issue of 1919.
