Title: 
The Owl: A Miscellany (1919)
The Winter Owl (1923)

Publication Dates:. 
May 1919 (1:1); Oct. 1919 (1:2); Nov. 1923 (2:3)

Place(s) of Publication: 
London, England

Frequency of Publication: 
Quarterly and irregular

Circulation:
Unknown

Publisher: 
Cecil Palmer, 49 Chandos Street, Covent Garden, London

Physical Description: 
Softbacked 13″ x 10″ red cover, woodcut of owl. Published poems, stories, essays, with full color illustrations. 50 – 90 pages.

Price:
12 shillings

Editor(s): 
Robert Graves (May 1919 – Nov. 1923)
William Nicholson (Nov. 1923)

Associate Editor(s):
Unknown

Libraries with Original Issues: 
Northwestern University; Duke University; Harvard University; Columbia University; University of Rochester; University of Michigan; University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Emory University

Reprint Editions: 
Searchable PDFs of full run available online at Brown University’s Modernist Journals Project

The Owl was the brainchild of painter and children’s book illustrator Sir William Nicholson, who funded and contributed to the May 1919 inaugural issue. Unlike many of the little magazines of its time, The Owl rejected radical literary movements and published well-established writers instead. The magazine’s pages were filled with colorful illustrations and Georgian texts, embracing such themes as nature, childhood innocence, and traditional poetic wisdom (Vaughn 1). The Owl’s visual compositions – the artwork of many famous children’s book illustrators – also reflected these Georgian characteristics with storybook-like images.

The magazine operated under the editorial guidance of poet Robert Graves, son-in-law to Nicholson. Graves did not take any firm editorial stance in directing the magazine and its content; instead, he employed the mindset set forth in an essay by Lewis Carroll: “All owls are satisfactory” (“The Owl” 333). Unfortunately, this attitude did not carry the magazine very far. The hefty twelve shillings each issue cost did little to help sell copies of a magazine devoid of politics and filled with unfashionable contributors (Vaughn 2). The Owl was only issued three times before the creative endeavor failed.

The Owl declared its intentions on the first page of its initial issue:

“‘All owls are satisfactory,’ Lewis Carroll begins his essay on these birds: we accept the omen gratefully. It must be understood that “The Owl” has no politics, leads no new movement and is not even the organ of any particular generation–for that matter sixty-seven years separate the oldest and youngest contributors. But we find in common a love of honest work well done, and a distaste for short cuts and popular success. ”The Owl’ will come out quarterly or whenever enough suitable material is in the hands of the Editors.”

“Foreword.” The Owl, 1:1 (May 1919): 1.

Robert Graves (July 24, 1895 – Dec. 7, 1985)
Editor: May 1915; Oct. 1919

Touted as England’s “greatest living poet” by W. H. Auden in 1962, Robert Graves published over 140 books before he died (Graves). Born into an academic family in Wimbledon, England, he received encouragement to write from his father, a minor Irish poet, and mother, the daughter of a historical scholar. His studies were cut short in 1914 when he joined the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and four years of service left him wounded and traumatized. Nevertheless, writing remained his constant – even during the war Graves published three volumes of poetry (Graves). The rest of his life was spent teaching and writing. During his long career as poet, novelist, translator and literary scholar, Graves acquired a vast international reputation.

Sir William Newzam Prior Nicholson (Feb. 5, 1872 – May 16, 1949)
Editor: Nov. 1923

Best known for his work illustrating children’s stories, most notably The Velveteen Rabbit (1922) and Clever Bill, William Nicholson edited the final issue of The Owl. He studied at Herkomer’s Art School in Bushey, Hertfordshire, and Académie Julian in Paris before beginning a career in poster design with his brother. The artist won the Gold Medal in 1928 at the Olympic Games in Amsterdam in the Graphic Arts category, and was knighted in 1936.

Max Beerbohm
“Something Defeasible”
“Mr. William Nicholson”
“A Clergyman”

Pamela Bianco
Spring
Fairyland

W. H. Davies
“Love Impeached”
“Rogues”

John Galsworthy
“The Sun”

Robert Graves
“A Frosty Night”
“Ghost Raddled”
“Knowledge of God”

Thomas Hardy
“The Master and the Leaves”
“The Missed Train”

Vachel Lindsay
“The Golden Whales of California”

John Masefield
“Sonnet”

Walter de la Mare
“The Rabbit”
“Alas”

John Crowe Ransom
“Winter Remembered”
“An American Addresses Philomela”

“1928 Summer Olympics, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Art Contests.” Database Sports. 6 July 2009.

Images. “The Owl.” The Modernist Journals Project. Brown University. 17 July 2009.

The Modernist Journals Project. Brown University. 30 Oct. 2008.

“The Owl.” British Literary Magazines: The Modern Age, 1914-1984. Ed. Alvin Sullivan. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1986. 333-336.

“The Owl.” British Poetry Magazines, 1914-2000: A History and Bibliography of ‘Little Magazines.’ Comp. David Miller and Richard Price. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll, 2006. 38.

“Robert Graves.” Poets.org – Poetry, Poems, Bios & More. Academy of American Poets, 2008.

“Sir William Nicholson (1872 – 1949).” British Council: Art Collection. 6 July 2009.

Vaughn, Matthew R. Vaughn. “The Owl: An Introduction.” The Modernist Journals Project. Brown University. 27 Oct. 2008.

“The Owl” compiled by Callie Plaxco (Class of ’09, Davidson College)

Title: 
The Open Window

Date of Publication: 
Oct. 1910 – Sept. 1911

Place of Publication: 
London, England

Frequency of Publication: 
Monthly

Circulation:
Unknown

Publisher: 
Locke Ellis, 18, Whitcomb Street, London, Western Central (W.C.)

Physical Description: 
Back and front covers were dark blue/navy cardboard with blue board paper spines; pages were printed on cream cardboard. 6 inches x 4 ½ inches

Price: 
7 shillings and sixpence per year

Editor: 
Vivian Locke Ellis

Associate Editor(s): 
Stephen Reynolds (Contributing Editor)
Harold Child (Contributing Editor)

Libraries with Original Issues: 
Bodleian Library, British Library, Cambridge University Library, Harvard University Library, University of Texas, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Yale University Library.

PDF version of Volume II, No. 7 available online at the Modernist Magazines Project, directed by Professor Peter Brooker of the University of Sussex and Professor Andrew Thacker of De Montfort University.

The Open Window was an illustrated magazine published monthly in the West Central district of London. The first volume began in October 1910, and it was issued monthly for six months. The second volume began with number seven of the magazine, which was published in April 1911. The monthly ran for the next five months and published a total of twelve numbers to round out the two volumes. Although the magazine experienced a short life, it influenced other similar publications to become places where the voices of young artists and writers could be heard.

In The Open Window the contributions selected by Editor Locke Ellis “spring out of an experience of life. At their best [these works] are limpid, sure and tranquil, and have what is the first and last object and achievement of style—[the reader] entirely forgets the skills and delicacy” of these writers and contributors in midst of “the delight of the beauty [The Open Window] expresses” as a whole (Locke Ellis, 1918: 37).

Although Lock Ellis included no manifesto within his magazine, he proclaimed the magazine as a work of “elegance, grace, and classical feel” that “contains true elegance and distinction” (Zaturenska 178). Through his magazine, Locke Ellis transcends “the merely conventional or pretty theme” that becomes the magazine’s “own identity, and it seems very beautiful” (180).

Maxwell Armfield

“The Open Window”

“The End of the Wood”

Gilbert Cannan

“In the Depths”

E. F. Carritt

“Hydrolutry”

 

Harold Child

“The Man of Forty”

Louis Davis

“The Angel of the Christmas Tree”

Vivian Locke Ellis

“The Old Herdsman”

Robin Flower

“The Poems of John of Dorsington”

 

Keith Henderson

“Zoo”

“Behemoth in Hell”

Charles John Holmes

“Bude Cliffs”

St. John Lucas

“Three Grotesques”

Katherine Mansfield

“A Fairy Story”

Leslie Murray

“Study of a Dancer”

 

Stephen Reynolds

“Silly Saltie”

Auguste Rodin

“Projet de Marbre”

Noel Rooke

“Woodcut”

Huge de Sélincourt

“The Splendid Fact”

Claude Shepperson

“The Lark”

A. H. Smith

“The Background of Thought”

 

 

James Stephens

“Little Lady”

“Holiday”

Geoffrey Whitworth

“A Palimpest”

Jack B. Yeats

“A Solid Man”

 

 

Beryl de Zoete

“Adagio”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carswell, John. Lives and Letters: A.R. Orage, Katherine Mansfield, Beatrice Hastings, John Middleton Murry, S. S. Koteliansky – 1906-1957. New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1978.

Ellis, Vivian Locke. An Elegy. London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1914.

–––. The Venturers and Other Poems. Adelphi, London: Vivian Locke Ellis, 1913.

–––. “Vivian Locke Ellis.” Twelve Poets: A Miscellany of New Verse. Ed. Edward Thomas. London: Selwyn and Blount, 1918. 36-48.

Kemp, Sandra. Oxford Companion to Edwardian Fiction 1900-12: New Voices in the Age of Uncertainty. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Lapidge, Michael, ed. Interpreters of Early Medieval Britain. New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 2002.

Sullivan, Alvin. British Literary Magazines: The Victorian and Edwardian Age, 1837-1913: Historical Guides to the World’s Periodicals and Newspapers. Vol. 3. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1984.

Zaturenska, Marya. “Tradition Isn’t Convention.” Poetry 73.3 (1948): 177-80.

“The Open Window” compiled by Natalie Atabek (Class of ’13, Davidson College)

Title:
The New Freewoman
Superseded by The Egoist: An Individualist Review
Preceded by The Freewoman: A Weekly Feminist Review
and The Freewoman: A Weekly Humanist Review

Date of Publication:
Jun. 1913 – Dec. 1913

Place of Publication:
London, England

Frequency of Publication:
Semimonthly

Circulation:
2,500

Publisher:
New International Publishing Co. (Publisher)
Trade Union Labor at the Oxonian Press (Printer)

Physical Description:
Dimensions: 31.5 x 21 cm, 20 pages, two columns, black ink.

Price:
6 pence

Editor(s):
Dora Marsden

Associate Editor(s):
Rebecca West (Contributing editor)
Richard Adlington (Contributing editor)

Libraries with Original Issues:
U.S. Library of Congress, Princeton University Library, and The British Library

Reprint Editions: 
New York, N.Y.: Kraus Reprint Co., 1967

The transformation from The Freewoman, which ended in October 1912, to The New Freewoman, which began in June 1913, marked an official break from feminism for the sake of anarchism. Editor Dora Marsden reworded these terms, however, as “cause” and “individualism,” respectively. Marsden denounced mass movements that depersonalized the individual and reduced individuals to empty categories. With that individualism in mind, The New Freewoman proclaimed itself as without a Cause and for the empowerment of individuals, a movement known as Egoism. The manifesto and content ultimately led to the critique of the English language as an instrument of oppression and power. The New Freewoman took a decidedly literary shift and published works by a number of authors, especially Imagists, including Ezra Pound, whom Marsden met in 1912 through her colleague, Rebecca West. By October 1913 Pound contributed so heavily to the magazine that Rebecca West, feeling replaced, left the publication team. Under The New Freewoman Marsden published poems and prose by not only Pound but also H.D., William Carlos Williams, Amy Lowell, and more. It was the critique of language and semantics, however, that led to the last transformation of the magazine to The Egoist, which seemed more gender-neutral by not including “woman” or “man” in the magazine’s title.

In the second issue of The New Freewoman, Dora Marsden sets forth the purpose of the magazine in the “Views and Comments” section:

“Dear friends and readers, The New Freewoman has no Cause. The nearest approach to a Cause it desires to attain is to destroy Causes, and for the doing of this it finds its reward and incentive in its own satisfaction. The New Freewoman is not for the advancement of Woman, but for the empowering of individuals—men and women; it is not to set women free, but to demonstrate the fact that “freeing” is the individual’s affair and must be done first-hand, and that individual power is the first step thereto; it is not to bring new thoughts to individuals, but to set the thinking mechanism to the task of destroying thoughts; to make plain that thinking has no merit in itself, but is a machine, of which the purpose is not to create something, but to liberate something: not to create thoughts but to set free life impulses. […] Having no Cause we have no sacred ground, and no individual interpretations of life will be debarred beforehand. In the clash of opinion we shall expect ot find our values.”

“Views and Comments.” The New Freewoman. 1:2 (July 1, 1913): 25.

Dora Marsden (Mar. 5, 1882 – Dec. 13, 1960)
Editor: Jun. – Dec. 1913

Dora Marsden was born the fourth of five children on March 5, 1882 in Yorkshire, England. After the family woolen waste manufacturing business declined, her father emigrated to the U.S. and left his wife and four of his children including Marsden in England. Education was Dora Marsden’s path out of familial dependence and the beginning of her feminist awakening. After working as a teacher in her adolescence, Marsden graduated from Owens College in 1903. She again worked as a teacher until 1909, when she resigned and became a paid organizer for the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), a group focused on the suffragist movement. From 1909 to 1910 authorities repeatedly arrested and imprisoned Marsden. After resigning from the WSPU, Marsden edited and published The Freewoman: A Weekly Feminist Review. Under her leadership the magazine transformed from The Freewoman to The New Freewoman, and finally to The Egoist. From 1913 onward Marsden became less political but worked with The Egoist until its collapse in 1919. In 1920 she moved to the Lake District and became increasingly reclusive. With the help of Harriet Shaw Weaver, Marsden published two volumes (in 1928 and 1930) of her philosophy. These volumes were poorly received, and she suffered a mental breakdown in 1934 and attempted suicide in 1935. She became a patient at Crichton Royal Hospital until her death in 1960 (Oxford DNB Vol. 36 777-778).

H.D.:
“The Newer School—II: Sitalkas

 Frances Gregg:
“Contes Macabres”

Horace Holley:
“Eve”
“The Plain Woman”
“The Egoist”

Amy Lowell:
“The Newer School—III: In a Garden”

Ezra Pound:
“The Contemporania of Ezra Pound”
“The Serious Artist”
“Ancora”
“April”
“Gentildonna”
“Surgit Fama”
“Convictions”
“The Choice”
“The Rest”

Benjamin Tucker:
“Paris Notes”
“Two Testaments”

Rebecca West:
“Trees of Gold”
“Nana”
“At Valladolid”
“Imagisme”
“Androcies and the Lion”

Allen Upward:
“Scented Leaves from a Chinese Jar”
“The God Karos”

William Carlos Williams:
“The Newer School—VI: Postlude”

Brooker, Peter, and Andrew Thacker. The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Vol. 1, 11. Print.

Clarke, Bruce. “Dora Marsden and Ezra Pound: “the New Freewoman” and “the Serious Artist”.” Contemporary Literature. 33.1 (1992): 91. Print.

Clarke, Bruce, and Sharon Stockton. “Dora Marsden and Early Modernism: Gender, Individualism, Science.” Clio 27.2 (1998): 320. Print.

Fernihough, Anne. Freewomen and Supermen: Edwardian Radicals and Literary Modernism. , 2013. Web.

Garner, Les. A Brave and Beautiful Spirit: Dora Marsden, 1882-1960. Aldershot, Hants [England: Avebury, 1990. Print.

Images. The New Freewoman. The Modernist Journals Project. 15 Jun 2016.

Kinnahan, Linda A. Poetics of the Feminine: Authority and Literary Tradition in William Carlos Williams, Mina Loy, Denise Levertov, and Kathleen Fraser. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Print.

MacShane, Frank. Ford Madox Ford: The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge and K. Paul, 1972. Print.

Matthew, H. C. G., Brian Harrison, and British Academy. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography : In Association with the British Academy : From the Earliest Times to the Year 2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Vol. 36. 777-778. Print.

Moody, Anthony D. Ezra Pound: Poet : a Portrait of the Man and His Work. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Print.

Morrisson, Mark S. The Public Face of Modernism: Little Magazines, Audiences, and Reception, 1905-1920. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2001. Print.

“You Might Also Like . . . : Magazine Networks and Modernist Tastemaking in the Dora Marsden Magazines.” The Journal of Modern Periodical Studies. 5.1 (2014): 27-68. Print.

“The New Freewoman” compiled by Sophia Guevara (Class of ’16, Davidson College)

Title: 
The New Coterie: A Quarterly of Literature and Art

Date of Publication: 
Nov. 1925 (1:1) – Summer/Autumn 1927 (1:6)

Frequency of Publication: 
Quarterly (six issues)

Circulation: 
1,000 copies printed for one issue

Place of Publication: 
London, England

Publisher: 
E. Archer, London

Physical Description: 
Poetry, short fiction, drama and art, followed by several pages of advertisements at the end of the magazine

Price:
Unknown

Editor(s): 
Russell Green (?) No masthead was published listing editors

Associate Editor(s):
Unknown

Libraries with Original Issues: 
Getty Research Institute; Duke University; University of California, Los Angeles; University of Connecticut; Stanford University; Amherst College; Princeton University; Columbia University; Ohio State University; University of Virginia; Cambridge University; Northwestern University

Reprint Editions: 
New York: Kraus Reprint Corporation, 1967.

The New Coterie was a quarterly publication first published in 1925, four years after the demise of its predecessor, Coterie. The magazine continued with the same basic philosophy as Coterie: it was meant for an audience “which wanted to be au courant in arts and letters” (Sullivan 112). The London publication circulated six issues between November, 1925 and the summer of 1927, and published works by D. H. Lawrence, Karel Capek, Liam O’Flaherty, and Aldous Huxley.

It is unclear who edited The New Coterie. There was no masthead for The New Coterie but Coterie’s editorial duties had been shared by Chaman Lall and Russell Green and the overall format and the agenda of The New Coterie remained close to that of Green and Lall’s publication. Because Green’s work still appeared regularly in The New Coterie, many critics believe he was the editor of the unattributed magazine.

Russell Green
Editor: Nov. 1925 – Autumn 1927 (Presumably; no masthead published)

While a student at Queens College at Oxford, Green was a contributor to Oxford Poetry, and he won the university’s Newdigate Prize for his poem “Venice.” Upon graduation, he worked as a civil servant but remained active with literature by contributing translations, prose, and poetry to many magazines. He joined with Chaman Lall to edit the final double issue of Coterie and he is believed to have edited all six issues of The New Coterie, as the magazine frequently featured his work and its editorial style reflected his efforts in Coterie. After his editing tenure ended, Green continued to write poetry and novels, such as Wilderness Blossoms (1936), Prophet without Honour (1934), and Northern Star (1942).

H. E. Bates
“The Spring Song”
“Song in Winter”

Karel Capek
“The Fathers”
“Karel Capek (Self Caricature)”

Aldous Huxley
“Smithfield”

D. H. Lawrence
“Sun”

Faith Compton Mackenzie
“Miss Mabel Ebony”

Liam O’Flaherty 
“Civil War”
“The Terrorist”
“Darkness: A Tragedy in 3 Acts”
“The Child of God”

William Rothenstein
Pastel

Aveilhe, Tara. “Coterie: An Introduction.” The Modernist Journals Project. Brown Universiy. 8 Sept. 2008.

Martell, Edward, and L.G. Pine, eds. “GREEN, Russell.” Who Was Who Among English and European Authors. Vol. 2. Detroit, MI: Gale, 1978. 597.

New Coterie: A Quarterly of Literature and Art. New York: Kraus Reprint Corporation, 1967.

Sullivan, Alvin, ed. “Coterie.” British Literary Magazines. New York, NY: Greenwood P, 1986. 110-12.

“The New Coterie” compiled by Severin Tucker (Class of ’09, Davidson College)