Items related to Critical Times: The History of the Times Literary Supplement
A comprehensive, colourful and entertaining history of 100 years of that great British institution, The Times Literary Supplement, published for its centenary year in 2002. This text is not only a "biography" of an institution, but it is a reflection of the changes in British literature and culture throughout the 20th century. From its first tenuous year, 1902, when it was conceived of by the then manager of The Times Moberley Bell, to its modern-day incarnation, the Times Literary Supplement has been home to an astonishing assemblage of outstanding writers. This work also reveals for the first time the identities of the journal's anonymous reviewers since 1902 - a tradition which lasted until 1974. What emerges is a record of British writing and writers, working against the backdrop of their times. For instance, through the period of the Boer War, Rudyard Kipling, Virginia Woolf and John Buchan joined the paper's reviewing team; and during the World War I, with the paper reflecting on the rightness of that war, it attracted Rupert Brooke, Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon to its ranks. By the World War II, the paper articulated the fear and anger felt towards Nazi Germany with such commentators as Orwell and Evelyn Waugh. And so the TLS continues to hold a mirror up to politics, culture and society through to the modern day. Derwent May, formerly of the TLS himself, also examines the ethos and aims of the paper's editors, management and staff; the dilemmas, controversies, the jests, the quarrels, the court cases and relations between writers and critics.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review:
Derwent May's centenary history of the Times Literary Supplement: Critical Times: The History of The Times Literary Supplement signifies its importance (and its self-importance). For a hundred years the Times Literary Supplement has enjoyed a pre-eminent status among highbrow writers and reviewers in the UK. For 75 years of its history, the TLS published mostly anonymous reviews, "coming out", as May puts it, only when the pressure for transparency became impossible to resist. However, a database of all the paper's reviewers--anonymous and signed--has now been created, although May has used the paper's own records of contributors for his chronological study of the paper. The result is somewhat disappointing. Instead of a behind-the-scenes look at the mechanics of one of the most influential papers around, we get a year-by-year resumé of who said what about whom. Readers wondering about how books were selected for review, or about the relationship between the TLS and commercial publishers, or readers simply wanting a quantitative survey of the changing subject-matter of the review, will have to look elsewhere or do the research themselves, via the database. Although the great and the good of the literary scene are all here-"Q", Woolf, Eliot, Amis major and minor, Berlin, etc--and most of the famous academic skirmishes get good coverage (communism, science vs. culture, post-structuralism), the book is too list-like a treatment. This is very much a history of the TLS by the TLS and for the TLS, and the main joy for many in reading it will be to see whether they get a mention. --Miles Taylor.
Review:
An entertaining and at times riveting history of a peculiar British institution. -- Sunday Telegraph
An entertaining and at times riveting history... an indispensable addition to our literary history... -- PAUL JOHNSON, Sunday Telegraph
‘A remarkable work of compression... displaying the same qualities of scholarship, eccentricity and humour that characterise the TLS itself.' -- ANDREW ROBERTS, The Times
‘The ultimate review of reviews... on every page May salvages marvellous lines from the files’ -- DAVID SEXTON, Evening Standard
An entertaining and at times riveting history... an indispensable addition to our literary history... -- PAUL JOHNSON, Sunday Telegraph
‘A remarkable work of compression... displaying the same qualities of scholarship, eccentricity and humour that characterise the TLS itself.' -- ANDREW ROBERTS, The Times
‘The ultimate review of reviews... on every page May salvages marvellous lines from the files’ -- DAVID SEXTON, Evening Standard
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherHarperCollins Publishers Ltd
- Publication date2004
- ISBN 10 0007114826
- ISBN 13 9780007114825
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages584
(No Available Copies)
Search Books: Create a WantIf you know the book but cannot find it on AbeBooks, we can automatically search for it on your behalf as new inventory is added. If it is added to AbeBooks by one of our member booksellers, we will notify you!
Create a Want