New Writing

New Writing
CategoriesLiterary magazine
FounderJohn Lehmann
Founded1936
Final issue1950
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

New Writing was a popular literary periodical in book format founded in 1936 by John Lehmann and committed to anti-fascism.[1]

It featured leading poets and writers of the day such as W.H. Auden, V.S. Pritchett,[2] Christopher Isherwood, Tom Wintringham, Stephen Spender,[3] Ahmed Ali,[4] Jim Phelan, Rex Warner, and B. L. Coombes.[5] New Writing also published articles about Mass-Observation by Tom Harrisson.[5]

After having been approached by Lehmann to contribute a piece to the periodical, George Orwell developed a "sketch" he had had in mind for some time, and which appeared as "Shooting an Elephant", first published in the second number of the periodical, in Autumn 1936.[1] A second piece by Orwell, "Marrakech", appeared in the Christmas 1939 edition.[6]

Penguin New Writing

With New Writing's future uncertain, Lehmann wrote New Writing in Europe for Pelican Books, a critical summary of the writers of the 1930s. Wintringham reintroduced Lehmann to Allen Lane of Penguin Books, who secured paper for Penguin New Writing, a monthly book-magazine, this time as a paperback, and which survived until 1950.

References

  1. ^ a b The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume 1 – An Age Like This 1939–1940, p. 250. Penguin
  2. ^ "John Lehmann" Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 28 December 2013.
  3. ^ Lehmann, John Folios of New Writing, Issue 1, p. 9. Hogarth Press, 1940 At Google Books. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  4. ^ Orwell and Politics. Penguin UK, 2001 At Google Books. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  5. ^ a b Steve Ellis, British writers and the approach of World War II. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. ISBN 9781107054585 (p. 175)
  6. ^ The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume 1 – An Age Like This 1939–1940, p. 426. Penguin