American Review (literary journal)
Editor | Ted Solotaroff |
---|---|
Categories | Literary magazine |
First issue | 1967 |
Final issue Number | 1977 26 |
Country | United States |
Based in | New York City |
Language | English |
American Review (formerly the New American Review) was a
Publishing history
The American Review published its first issue in 1967 as New American Review, edited by
The twenty-sixth and final issue was published in September 1977.[3] It ceased publication for financial reasons, and because Solotaroff felt it had run its course.[3] Its circulation had decreased from a peak of 100,000 to 50,000 and its price increased from $0.95 to $2.45 a copy. The New York Times reported that at the time, it was "the longest-running paperback literary periodical".[3] Slate's Glenn Howard hypothesized that the publication's struggle may in part be due to the decline of "the countercultural project" of the 1960s.[1]
Content
American Review printed traditional and experimental
It was unusual for the number of well-known and later-known writers it attracted from its very first issue. Its list of notable writers includes:
In total, the American Review published 26 issues including about 200 short stories, 300 poems, and 130 essays written by 500 authors.[4]
Legacy
Upon the publication's final issue, Richard Locke praised its content, influence, and ambition in The New York Times, while criticizing elements of Solotaroff's editorial style, such as his disinterest in impersonal forms of writing, never defining his standards, and passively letting writers bring work to him rather than cultivating a stronger guiding concept: "in his admirable reluctance to turn the review into a closed shop or to lay down an ideological line, he reduced his editorial criteria to an unarguable question of taste. And so the magazine was simply Solotaroff - not an institution like the old Partisan or Kenyon reviews, 'little magazines' with an articulate, developing cultural position, but rather a product of one man's taste".[4] Years later, Glenn Howard wrote in Slate that the American Review "the greatest American literary magazine ever."[1] Vanity Fair's James Wolcott said the publication "started off stellar and never lost altitude, never peaked out, continuing to make literary news back when literary news didn't seem like an oxymoron, each issue bearing something eventful...".[5]
References
- ^ a b c d Howard, Gerald (19 August 2008). "Was New American Review the Best Literary Magazine Ever?". Slate.
- ^ a b c Grimes, William (12 August 2008). "Theodore Solotaroff, Founder of the New American Review, Is Dead at 80". The New York Times.
- ^ ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-07-10.
- ^ a b c d e f Locke, Richard (November 20, 1977). "The Literary View". The New York Times.
- ^ a b c Wolcott, James (12 August 2008). "Last of the Literary Godfathers". Vanity Fair. Archived from the original on 2014-12-18.