ISSUE: Autumn 1928
“Here’s a marvellous convenient place for our rehearsal”
An announcement so vitally affecting the Virginia Quarterly that it must interest all of its friends is the acceptance by Lambert Davis of the managing editorship of this magazine. Mr. Davis has been in editorial work ever since completing his academic course at the University of Virginia from which he received his bachelor of arts and his master’s degrees. He went from the editing of a radio magazine to the editorial offices of Doubleday, Doran and Company, resigning his position there to join the staff of the Virginia Quarterly. He brings publishing experience, a trained mind, and youth and energy to his new task. Mr. Davis is a native of Virginia. Mr. F. String-fellow Barr, whose brilliant work as managing editor has in two years more than doubled the number of subscriptions and built the advertising department to its present growing state, will not sever his connection with the Quarterly. As an editor on the advisory staff, he will continue to give as freely of his time and services as his other work as a writer and scholar will allow. Mr. Bruce Williams, who has been an advisory editor since the first issue, has recently joined the faculty of Cornell University. Mr. Williams has been special advisor for political topics. His service to the Quarterly has been of distinguished character. The staff sincerely regrets this loss. The editorship of the Virginia Quarterly otherwise remains unchanged.
The author of “A Challenge to Patriots” is already known, through earlier contributions. Dumas Malone is a professor of history whose earlier associations and present connections are Southern, but whose training in his specialty was in the North, He is the author of “The Public Life of Thomas Cooper.” The timeliness of his paper is stressed by the recent steps taken by such universities as those of Texas, Virginia, and North Carolina to collect manuscript materials for safe protection in their own states.
There will be those who find in John Hyde Preston’s paper, “Aesthetics and Religion,” a spirit so provocative to men of a differing temper that they may wonder why it was not entitled “A Challenge to Churches.” Mr. Preston has written often for this review, his study of Walter Pater, “The Portrait of an Epicurean,” having drawn to its author much favorable attention. Mr. Preston has postponed the completion of his life of Gourmont until he can visit Paris and is now at his home in Cannondale, Connecticut, writing a life of that arresting figure, Mad Anthony Wayne.
No more satisfying example of personal journalism could be selected to illustrate the thesis of Gerald W. Johnson’s article than its own author. Mr. Johnson, who is now with the Baltimore Sun, has published articles in a number of American magazines, including his “A Tilt with Southern Wind-Mills” in the Virginia Quarterly Review, in which the tempered clink of the image-breaking hammer sounded. He was, of course, a newspaper man in North Carolina, and later a teacher at the University of that state, before he joined the sophisticated ironists of the Sun’s staff.
The bold person who has invited to our table “The Devil to Dinner” is Clemence Dane, the distinguished British novelist whose “societv” name is Winifred Ashton. She is the author of the well-remembered plays “A Bill of Divorcement” and “Will Shakespeare.” Among her novels “Legend” was published eight years ago and “Regiment of Women,” probably her most distinguished creation, in 1917. Her charm as an essayist is already familiar to our readers through her paper “Men’s Women and Women’s Women.” A new novel is on the fall list.
Fredericks v. Blankner is a specialist as a student of Italian culture. Going for study to Italy under the auspices of Wellesley College, she won a degree from the Royal University of Rome with a thesis on “U Influenza di Dante e del fdolce stil nuovo3 sulle Opere di Lorenzo de’ Medici il Magnifico.” Later her paper on Dante and Lorenzo de’ Medici was awarded the Dante prize by the Dante Society of America at Harvard University. Besides being a member of many learned societies, Miss Blankner is a poet. Her home is in Chicago.
The return of the English Singers to the United States this fall adds an appropriateness to the beauty of Babette Deutsch’s poems. “Banner” and “Honey Out of the Rock” are titles of her volumes. Several of her poems have earlier been printed in our pages. robert Frost gave the manuscript of his poem, “Acquainted with the Night,” to the editor just before leaving his home in South Shaftsbury, Vermont, for England. Mr. Frost is now assembling the poems written since the publication of his notable “New Hampshire” for a new volume scheduled for late fall publication. George Herbert Clarke of Queen’s University, Canada, is poet, editor, and reviewer. Two more poems by Carl Sandburg follow the group of five that represented that well-known American in the July, number. All seven will be included in a new volume by Mr. Sandburg now in preparation. Anne Black-well Payne, whose earlier work has frequently drawn letters of praise from readers of the Quarterly, is a native of North Carolina who is for the present living in New York A research fellowship at the University of Chicago has just been awarded to Robert Liddell Lowe whose lyrics came to the Quarterly from Waco, Texas. Mr. Lowe is a recent graduate of Baylor LTniversity and is nineteen years of age. These are his first contributions to this magazine. R. P. Harriss is a member of the editorial staff of the Baltimore Evening Sun. He has published both verse and nature essays. LIjs own home is the Cape Fear country of North Carolina.
As one of the judges at Cairo of the Mixed Tribunals, Judge Pierre Crabites writes with authority in his paper on the unique method of justice which he helps administer. Formerly of Louisiana, he has recently visited his native land. He is a frequent contributor to periodicals of this country, his last article in the Virginia Quarterly being “More Words with a Mummy.”
The author of “Sursum,” Elizabeth Eldridge, brings a new name to the pages of The Green-Room. The paper, like its theme, comes from Texas. It was as a student at the University of Texas that the author of “Sursum” gathered her material. The story of Elisabet Ney is full of interest and not a familiar one, but Miss Eldridge has presented also the significance of the survival of her art and her legend in the heart of Texas.
No student of the American drama is unacquainted with “The New York Idea,” one of the plays that made Laxg-dox Mitchell’s name familiar to theatre-goers. A series of dramatizations, of which the best remembered is “Becky Sharp” with Mrs. Fiske in the title role, proved his knowledge of theatrical values. He writes of playmaking from the point of view of an experienced craftsman plus that of the seasoned man of the world and critic. The paper, “The Drama: Can it be Taught,” will be included in a book, “The Art of Playwriting,” to be issued soon from the University of Pennsylvania Press. Mr. Mitchell is the son
* a of the novelist, s. Weir Mitchell. He is at present in Europe.
In the three fields of poetry, criticism, and scholarly editing, Howard Mumford Jones had already won recognition before the recent publication of his “America and French Culture” by the University of North Carolina Press. His review of the selected poems of Carl Sandburg in the January, 1927, Virginia Quarterly, Mr. Sandburg considers one of the best criticisms of his poetry. Arthur Ruhl has been at different times connected with the New York Sun, Collier’s, the Evening Post, and the Herald-Tribune. His special articles have made his name familiar to most Americans. Among his books are “Antwerp to Gallipoli” and “New Masters of the Baltic.” His “The Central Americans” (Scribner’s) has just appeared. Frederick P. Mayer of the University of Pittsburgh has written frequently for this quarterly both as an essayist and a reviewer. As editor and literary historian John Calvin Metcalf has been especially interested in biography. He is author of histories of English and American literature and a frequent contributor of critical reviews to magazines. The reviewer of “Campaign Literature” is a young newspaper man whose articles have recently been featured by magazines as opposed as Scribner’s and The American Mercury. Virginius Dabney has recently left the News-Leader of Richmond (Virginia) for The Times-Dispatch. Reviews by James C. Bardin have already been used by the Virginia Quarterly. Dr. Bar-din is a specialist in the field of Spanish literature. F. Stringfellow Barr, whose writings are known to all readers of these pages, is managing editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review. As a student of Italian history and affairs, Mr. Barr has come into close contact with the theme of his review by last summer’s residence in Italy.
Marie Kimball (Mrs. Fiske Kimball) has been uncovering notable documents of French origin relating to American statesmen. Her “Jefferson’s Farewell to Romance” was in our July number. Harry Clemoxs is librarian of the University of Virginia: James Hart is in the department of political science at the Johns Hopkins University: Carroll Mason Sparrow is one of the editors of the Virginia Quarterly Review. All three have contributed before to the “Discussions of New Books.”
The virginia quarterly review
Edited by james southall WILSON
Advisory Editors
Edwin A. Alderman Carroll M. Sparrow
John Calvin Metcalf Bruce Williams
The Virginia Quarterly Review is published at the University of Virginia: in April, July, October, and January. Subscription rates: $3.00 the year. Canadian, $3.25; Foreign, $3.50. Single copies, 75 cents.
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E. Stringfellow Barr, Managing Editor
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