The English Review

The English Review was a literary magazine published in London from 1908 until 1937, which at its zenith published some of the leading writers of its day.

The magazine was founded in 1908 by Ford Madox Hueffer, later Ford Madox Ford, said to be because of his “rage” at discovering that the novelist and poet Thomas Hardy was unable to find a journal willing to publish his poem “A Sunday Morning Tragedy”. The first issue, published in December 1908, contained original work by Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Joseph Conrad, John Galsworthy, W. H. Hudson, R. B. Cunninghame Graham and H. G. Wells. Hueffer maintained that level of quality in subsequent issues, publishing the early work of Ezra Pound, D. H. Lawrence and Wyndham Lewis.

Despite its literary excellence, the venture was not a financial success. Issued as a monthly magazine of approximately 175 pages, and sold for half a crown, equivalent to about £14 as at 2021,^[a]Calculated using the retail price index.^[1] the magazine’s circulation never exceeded 1000 during Hueffer’s editorship,^[2] and as result, after fourteen issues, he sold the magazine to the financier and Liberal politician Sir Alfred Mond in 1909, who appointed the literary editor and drama critic of the Daily Mail, Austin Harrison, as its new editor.^[3] Hueffer did however continue to contribute to the publication.^[4]

Under Harrison’s leadership the magazine’s circulation jumped to 18,000, aided by reducing the magazine’s price in 1912 by more than half to one shilling, equivalent to about £5 as at 2021,^[b]Calculated using the retail price index.^[1] allowing Harrison to buy out Mond in 1915.^[3]

The magazine went into decline following the end of the First World War. Harrison sold it to Ernest Remnant in 1923, who gave the magazine a less literary and “intensely Conservative slant”, trebling its circulation almost overnight.^[5] In 1937 the magazine was absorbed by another right-wing magazine, The National ReviewRight-wing British magazine founded in 1883..^[6]