Tenth Anniversary: Four Editors Remember

Tenth Anniversary: Four Editors Remember

 

Anne Smith

Founding Editor 1979-1981

I used to say to journalists who interviewed me about the start of Literary Review that I did it because the TLS was on strike and no-one else seemed to care enough about books to try to fill the awful gap it left. I would add that even when it was there, there was still a gap, since the TLS caters to a fairly exclusive academic readership. But of course if these had been the only reasons they would not have got me through the initial meeting with technically-minded and long-winded printers.

What kept me going was an idealistic sense of gratitude to all the writers of all the good books which one way and another had enriched my life: I wanted to give something back. Book reviewing seemed to have become a mere academic or political exercise or even worse, an outlet for the vanity of the reviewer; the books pages were a refuge for the self-interested. Coming to the end of a review you still had precious little idea whether you would want to read the book. You felt that the review was written from within

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter