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Norfolk, Virginia, *Virginia-Pilot*; August 2, 1935:

The most curious thing about *The Southern Review*, the most recent addition to the list of serious quarterlies published in the South, is that it should come out of what is popularly believed to be Huey Long's university. Louisiana State University is obviously Huey's so far as the football team is concerned, and the band, and the student newspaper; and it seems, after a recent episode, to be Huey's in administration. It has appeared to be his in its new financial development. But there is a catch in this theory. The new *Journal of Southern History*, which was born on its campus, has no greater spiritual affinity with Huey than Thomas Jefferson with Thomas Heflin. And now *The Southern Review* CONFIRMS THE SUGGESTION THAT LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY HAS SCHOLARS OF ENERGY, INITIATIVE, IDEAS AND INDEPENDENCE.

New York *Times*, August 6, 1935; John Chamberlain in
"Books of the Times," reviewing John L. Spivak's
*America Faces the Barricades*:

Huey Long is a denagogue to Mr. Spivak.

While Mr. Spivak is probably right about this, I am moved
to an ironical smile by the appearance of the first issue
of *The Southern Review*, a quarterly which is published by
Huey's own pet college, Louisiana State University. When
Huey didn't like the way the football team at Louisiana
State was being run, he made things hot for the head

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coach, Howard Jones. It is all the more amazing, therefore, to find an extremely liberal magazine in *The Southern Review*.

*The New Republic*; August 10, 1935

Here is a magazine, published at Louisiana State University, with funds made available by Huey Long, that promises to become one of the distinguished publications of this country. (It may be hard to believe, but it's true.) Beautifully designed and printed, edited with taste and discernment, it wisely avoids too great a preoccupation with the purely regional and includes within its range subjects of national and international interest.

*Yale Review*; Autumn, 1939

A number of group-impressed periodicals have arisen, such as *The Southern Review*--a Baton Rouge off-set to James Monroe Smith.

*The Nation*; January 4, 1941

*The Southern Review*, issued at Louisiana State University, operates a good deal farther behind the journalistic lines, and I find it rather piquant not only that it comes out of Huey Long's bailiwick, but that both contributors and subjects often veer to the left. The most recent issue contains a symposium on literature and the professors...

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It would be called "highbrow," I suppose;
YET BECAUSE OF ITS CATHOLICITY IT HAS A QUALITY OF UN-
EXPECTEDNESS THAT IS CERTAINLY ONE OF THE PRIME RE-
QUISITES OF GOOD JOURNALISM. Incidentally, it is very
attractively printed.

## II. THE REVIEW AS AN INTERPRETER AND DEFENDER OF THE SOUTH

*The New Republic; October 19, 1938:*

Meanwhile there is still a need for a mag-
azine primarily devoted to literature, one that can pub-
lish long poems or groups of poems and leisurely essays
and long stories of literary merit that wouldn't have a
chance in the commercial weeklies or monthlies--a mag-
azine, in short, that would carry on the traditions of
*The Dial*, dead in 1929, and the *Hound and Horn*, dead in
1934. I saw both of them go without much sorrow, but I
miss them more as time goes on, and I think they are
missed by every serious writer. Today there is *The
Criterion**, edited by an Anglo-Catholic in London, and
there is *THE SOUTHERN REVIEW*, EDITED IN BATON ROUGE BY
A GROUP OF DE-RECONSTRUCTED REBELS;...Here is a place the
*Partisan Review* might have filled in New York...

*(The Criterion has since suspended publication.)*

*The Tennessean Magazine; July 28, 1935:*

The maiden issue of *The Southern Review*, a
quarterly published at Louisiana State University,

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appearing this month is a phenomenon to warm the
cockles of a Southerner's heart and whip up intell-
ectual appetites all over the country.

*Highschool* (National secondary education journal);
February 8, 1936:

*The Southern Review*, published by Louisiana State University, IS AN ELOQUENT REPLY TO THOSE WHO THINK OF THE COTTON COUNTRY AS A MORASS OF ILLITERACY. It is a scholarly and literary quarterly that stands to the fore of its contemporaries with its concern for democratic culture.

Headline in Memphis *Commercial-Appeal*, reviewing the
Spring, 1937, issue of *The Southern Review*:

MAGAZINE HURLS GAUNTLET IN DEFENSE OF
SOUTH

Columbus, Georgia, *Ledger*; February 21, 1936, in an
editorial headed "Wade on Caldwell":

One of the brightest minds the writing
world of Georgia has produced in the last decade is
John Donald Wade...He has given the nation some highly
valuable interpretations of Georgia life. It is of par-
ticular interest therefore when he undertakes a calm and
factual estimate of another Georgia writer, Erskine
Caldwell, who is now ranked as the South's interpreter
of most doubtful value. For instance, he wrote "Tobacco

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Road."...

Dr. Wade's able analysis appears IN THE CURRENT ISSUE OF THE SOUTHERN REVIEW, PUBLISHED QUAR- TERLY BY THE LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS AT BATON ROUGE. He concludes with the assertion that "truly, it is a packaging thing to say of an author that the more one may know of a circumstance the author describes, the less, very often, one is disposed to credit his report. Much that Mr. Caldwell has written is misleading...It is likely that his entire literary output would be more im- pressive if--a good Southerner still-he were not as plaintively anxious as he is to please the kind and class of people that he has come to be affiliated with-- the detached, nervous, thrill-goaded metro-cosmopolitans."

Birmingham *Aba-Herald*; March 13, 1937; from the report of an address by Dean Christian Gauss, of Princeton Uni- versity:

Exampling this renascence, in Dean Gauss's opinion, are the literary magazines at Southern univer- sities--*The Sewanee Review*, *The South Atlantic Quarterly*, *The Virginia Quarterly*, *The Southern Review*. He praises the South for "having made this field of distinctively non-commercial, non-academic publication your own. As I have read these magazines I have been delighted particular- ly by the fact that you are interested in promoting cer- tain experiments in non-commercial American living..."

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### III. THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE SUBSIDIZED QUARTERLY

Nashville *Banner*; in a column headed "Southern Review";

*The Dial* was a lot of fun; sometimes you couldn't understand what it was all about; sometimes it was as lucid as Christopher Morley himself. But it is gone now, with nothing to take its place. That is sad, but not an irreparable loss...AND THEN THERE'S THE SOUTHERN REVIEW.

The Lord knows it's not *The Dial*. But, then, it's not *The American Review* either, that sad downfall of the smug and swell old *Bookman*. It's academic and a quarterly, but it is entertaining, in a very serious way...THERE ARE HERE IN THIS QUARTERLY MANY OTHER ARTICLES OF A NATURE FOR WHICH THERE ARE NONE TOO MANY MEDIUMS...

### *The New Republic*, July 21, 1941:

This criticism has been extremely catholic and extremely acute: there has been no analysis too complicated, delicate or surprising for these critics to undertake. Modern criticism has accomplished a change in taste, a critical revolution, even greater than the change in poetic performance which modernist poets have effected...I have been speaking of such critics as William Empson, Cleanth Brooks, Robert Penn Warren, and five or six others. Their criticism is often printed in such magazines as *The Southern Review*, *The Kenyon Review*, and *Partisan Review*.

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*Harvard Alumni Bulletin; November 1, 1935:*

The difficulties of publishing successfully a serious quarterly review identified with a college or university are considerable. Such a review must, to put it briefly, CONTENT ITSELF WITH FEW SUBSCRIBERS AND EX- ACT A HEAVY SUBSIDY...

But a magazine can always be printed if its backers are able and willing to support it, and although it may reach but few readers, if it is well edited it may perform a useful service. MORE THAN ONE COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY QUARTERLY IS SUBSISTING ON THESE TERMS, AND IS BRINGING OUT EXCELLENT MATERIAL, MATERIAL WHICH MIGHT OTHERWISE NEVER APPEAR AT ALL, or might appear on terms even less favorable to writers who are hard enough put to it for channels of publication.

Although it is hardly possible to imagine encouraging commercial prospects for a newcomer in the field, we extend our greetings and good wishes to *The Southern Review...* This promising quarterly is published by the Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge. IT IS DIGNIFIED AND READABLE IN FORMAT, AND VIGOROUSLY EDITED...

*Poetry: A Magazine of Verse; April, 1936*

It is a matter for general congratulation that this gloom has been relieved by *The Southern Review*, and a cause for special rejoicing that relief has come, not in the form of such feeble compromises with popularity as are usually put up in luring public support, BUT THROUGH A QUARTERLY OF UNQUESTIONABLE INTEGRITY IN ITS EDITORIAL

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AND LITERARY AIMS...This fear may be greatly reduced, and even eliminated, if one keeps an eye on the object, for the *Review* has announced and maintained a distinction that immediately makes it SUPERIOR TO POLITICAL AFFILIATIONS... These papers require no unthinking agreement, but whoever disagrees with their point of view is invited to do so on a level of intelligence and sanity, not of provincial bias or the customary intolerant violence of propagandist causes...This prejudiced intelligence ought to become an object lesson to other journals advocating social or literary causes (including the *Review*'s direct opponents, WHO HAVE YET TO PRODUCE AN ORGAN A SHADE AS GOOD), and likewise should shed light on THE DEFECTS WHICH HAVE BROUGHT QUARTERLIES LIKE THE *YALE REVIEW* AND THE *VIRGINIA QUARTERLY* TO MISS THEIR SERIOUS OPPORTUNITIES. The secret of such success for *The Southern Review* lies in its critical program, which should direct and instruct the more precarious effort of reconciling the conservative and revolutionary elements in the American struggle.

## IV. THE REPUTATION OF THE SOUTHERN REVIEW WITH REFERENCE TO FICTION

Duluth *Herald*; May 25, 1937:

It is a fact worthy of examination that many of Mr. O'Brien's selections come from magazines that are not traditional leaders in the field. From *The Southern Review* come four of the stories which Mr. O'Brien considers best, while the largest number that any of the lordly

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publications has achieved is two.

The New Republic; October 7, 1936; in Basso's review of
Milburn's novel, Catalogue:

I have great respect for Mr. Milburn as a
writer, some of his short stories are among the best of
our time, and I feel that *Catalogue* would have been a
better book if its author had worked its substance into
the form with which he is more familiar. In the Autumn,
1935, issue of *The Southern Review*, Mr. Milburn pub-
lished some of the episodes contained in *Catalogue* as a
short story. It was an admirable story, done with skill
and distinction...

Writer's Digest; November, 1935

The measure for acceptance among the "quality"
or literary markets depends largely on style and "fine
writing." Plot means little... IN HARPER'S, SCRIBNER'S,
SOUTHERN REVIEW WE FIND TODAY THE BEST WRITING.

New York Times; May 26, 1937; Ralph Thompson, reviewing
Edward J. O'Brien's *The Best Short Stories of 1937:*

It is a good selection, even if it may not be
superlative. For the body of his book Mr. O'Brien chose
twenty-nine pieces: eight from the magazine *Story*, four
from *The Southern Review*, three each from *The Atlantic*
*Monthly* and *Scribner's*, two each from *The American Mercury*,
*Esquire*, and *New Stories*, one each from five other periodicals.

The appendix shows that there are something

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like seventy-five magazines publishing short stories
in the United States--half again as many as in Great
Britain. Of these seventy-five, however, only ten
managed to maintain during 1936 what Mr. O'Brien believes
to be a high average of distinction. *The Atlantic Monthly* leads this list, followed by *The Southern Review*.*

(*Actually Mr. Thompson has not noticed that *The Atlantic Monthly* and *The Southern Review* are tied for first place with 100% each, *The Atlantic* being listed first because of alphabetical arrangement of titles.*)

New York *Herald-Tribune*; May 25, 1937; from Lewis Gannett's column, "Books and Things";

[O'Brien] gives even a one-star rating to fewer than ten per cent of the stories printed in *The Cosmopolitan*, *Redbook*, *Pictorial Review*, and *American Magazine*, to only fifteen per cent of those in *The Saturday Evening Post*, while *Story magazine* gets that coveted asterisk for nine-tenths of its stories; and every one of the sixteen or seventeen short stories printed in *The Atlantic* and *The Southern Review* wins O'Brien stars.

(The following tables are taken from the O'Brien *Best Short Stories* of 1937, 1938, 1939, 1940. In addition to reprinting in these annual volumes a selection of the best short stories of the year, Mr. O'Brien grades the stories that are printed by the various magazines in America, assigning one star to stories of merit, two stars to stories of superior merit and three stars to stories of highest merit. The following excerpts from his tables show *The Southern Review* in relation to other magazines noted for their excellent stories. It is worthy of comment that *The Southern Review* in the four covered leads in the percentage of its stories which were given two stars or three stars--that is, the stories of very highest merit.):

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V. THE GENERAL REPUTATION OF THE SOUTHERN REVIEW IN THIS
COUNTRY AND ABROAD

The Washington Post; July 30, 1935:

If the editor were searching for a legendary
yardstick for The Southern Review, he would have no fur-
ther to look than within one of its own articles. There
Ford Madox Ford states that "to possess a Literature, a
country must have a whole cloud—or better still, a whole
populace—of writers instinct with a certain skill in, a
certain respect for, a certain productivity of, writing."
THE WRITERS OF THIS FIRST ISSUE MEASURE UP,

Memphis Commercial Appeal; May 16, 1937:

Despite its youth, this magazine has already
made a distinguished contribution to American letters.
Its list of contributors includes such names as Herbert
Agar, Aldous Huxley, Ford M. Ford, John Crowe Ransom,
Allen Tate, Carolyn Gordon, John T. Flynn, Hilaire
Bellec, and John Dewey—truly a distinguished group.

New Orleans Tino-Picayune (?):

It is a serious and thoughtful periodical,
not to be classed as light reading, even for the erudite,
and it is attractive in form and typography.

San Francisco Chronicle; January 18, 1936; from a literary
column by J. E. Jackson:

Judging by Volume I, Number 3, the first
issue I have seen, it's going to force some of the older

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and better known quarterlies to look to their laurels.

Atlanta Journal; July 27, 1935:

...the most notable contribution to the literary and printing art in the South in many years, carrying articles by many noted persons in the literary world...

Louisville Courier-Journal; May 31, 1936:

The new quarterly has something that suggests the quality of the lamented *Hound and Horn* that makes a telling blend with its Southern flavor.

Tulsa, Oklahoma, World; October 6, 1935:

...it is one of the most beautiful magazines of its kind I have ever seen. It has the *Yale Review* and *The Virginia Quarterly* so far outclassed as to appearance there is no comparison...

Dallas News; August 4, 1935:

With its initial number, *The Southern Review*, published at Baton Rouge under the patronage of the Louisiana State University, comes up fairly abreast of the ten-year-old *Virginia Quarterly*, quite as broad in its outlook, as weighty in opinion, somewhat fresher in its appropriately modern form.

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The Black and Gold, Birmingham-Southern College, November 6, 1936:

...[The Southern Review] is, past all comparison, the best quarterly being printed in America.

The Criterion (London), Spring, 1936:

The Southern Review is published by the Louisiana State University...IT WOULD BE A GOOD THING IF A FEW OF OUR OWN UNIVERSITIES SET TO WORK TO PRODUCE PERIODICALS OF SIMILAR EXCELLENCE. The Southern Review has the inestimable advantage of a solid core of homogeneous criticism...Already the best literary periodical of all the American publications...

The English Journal (College Edition); January, 1939:

This is the group of Southern writers whose organ was once The Fugitive of Nashville and is now the Southern Review of Baton Rouge, AT THE MOMENT THE MOST CRITICAL JOURNAL IN THE UNITED STATES. The critics adhering to this group have from the first attempted to link the idea of a whole and homogeneous culture with a whole aesthetic quality of a work of art. Their criticism has aimed to join the historical method with a formal and aesthetic on equal and mutually corrective terms. Their purposes have been best demonstrated in the work of Allen Tate...John Crowe Ransom..., Donald Davidson..., Robert Penn Warren and Cleanth Brooks (in The Southern Review.)... *there are projects being* in literary and

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critical pedagogy (at the University of Chicago, Kenyon College, Louisiana State University, and Harvard University) which are of the greatest moment in the coming years.

*Etudes Anglaises; April-June, 1936:*

Cette revue continue à être aussi séignée dans sa présentation que dans son contenu, et l'une des plus littéraires des États-Unis.

*Englische Studien (Leipzig):*

Im gansen scheint die neue Zeitschrift sehr wertvoll, anregend und für den hütigen Tag ausserordentlich aufschlussreich zu sein.

*Tino Magasina; January 23, 1939:*

Not since its brief awakening after the Civil War has southern literary life been as lively as it is now. Not since that same period has southern life changed as rapidly as it is now changing. Political and economic news from the South is confused and contradictory; but Southern literary news snaps and crackles with unexpected items—with new writers discovered and old writers coming back, new magazines popping up and every mail bringing to publishers' desks fresh evidence of the South's literary ferment. In England (where T.S. Eliot's