The Egoist (periodical)

The Egoist

Masthead from 15 July 1914 issue.
Editor	Harriet Shaw Weaver
Former editors	Dora Marsden
Categories	Literary magazine
Frequency	Monthly (initially a fortnightly)
Circulation	400 (in 1919)
Publisher	Noah Donnenberg
First issue	1914
Final issue	1919
Country	United Kingdom
Based in	London
Language	English

The Egoist (subtitled An Individualist Review) was a London literary magazine published from 1914 to 1919, during which time it published important early modernist poetry and fiction. In its manifesto, it claimed to "recognise no taboos," and published a number of controversial works, such as parts of Ulysses. Today, it is considered "England's most important Modernist periodical."

History

The Egoist was founded by Dora Marsden as a successor to her feminist magazine The New Freewoman, but was changed, under the influence of Ezra Pound, into a literary magazine. Pound got his benefactor John Quinn to buy him an editorial position in the magazine, and quickly it became a leading publication for imagist poetry. Its group of friends and contributors includes almost every writer of significance of the time, though some, like D. H. Lawrence (whose "Once" was published in the magazine in 1914), came to denounce it for "editorial sloppiness" and for the philosophical attitudes of its editorial staff. Among the work published in The Egoist is the work of James Joyce and T. S. Eliot, as well as letters and criticism.

Marsden was the editor in the first half of 1914, when it was a fortnightly; for most of its life it was a monthly. Editorship was taken over in July 1914 by Harriet Shaw Weaver. Assistant editors were Richard Aldington and Leonard A. Compton-Rickett, with H. D. When Aldington left in 1917 for the Army, his place was taken by T. S. Eliot, who was also working on Prufrock and other Observations at the time (published as a small book by The Egoist). When it folded in 1919, there were only 400 subscribers, down from 2,000 in 1911 when it was The Freewoman.

Notable contributions

• T. S. Eliot, "Tradition and the Individual Talent," vol. 6, nos. 4 & 5 (September & December 1919).
• James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, starting in 1914; three-and-a-half sections of Ulysses (1919)
• Wyndham Lewis, Tarr, April 1916 – November 1917.
• Charlotte Mew, "Fête," May 1914
• William Carlos Williams, "The Wanderer" and seven other poems, March 1914; "Transitional" and three other poems, December 1914

Works cited

• Edwards, Paul. "Futurism, Literature and the Market," in
• Eliot, Valerie. "Introduction," in
• Johnson, Jeri. "Composition and Publication History," in
• Longenbach, James. "'Mature Poets Steal': Eliot's Allusive Practice," in
• Matherer, Timothy. "T.S. Eliot's Critical Program," in

External links

• The Egoist at the Modernist Journals Project: cover-to-cover, searchable digital edition of all 6 volumes, from No 1.1 (1 January 1914) to No. 6.5 (December 1919)
• Articles online, from The Egoist Archive at nonserviam.com
• Account of The Egoist, at Modernism Lab Essays, a Yale University website