Volume 49, Number 9 · May 23, 2002
Happy Birthday!
By David Lodge
Critical Times: The History of the 'Times Literary Supplement'
by Derwent May
HarperCollins, 606 pp., $35.00
The Times Literary Supplement is one hundred years old this year. In 1997 Derwent May was commissioned to write a history of this venerable publication to mark the centenary. He was well qualified for the task, being an experienced literary editor, who himself worked on the TLS as a young man, as well as a novelist and literary critic. In some ways it was an enticing prospect—to have access to the archives of one of the great literary institutions of the twentieth century, and particularly to the identities of those who contributed their reviews anonymously for three quarters of that time. On the other hand the sheer bulk of raw data was intimidating. In 1997 the files of the TLS amounted to more than 250 million words, and probably another twenty million have been added since then, because the journal has grown fatter rather than leaner over the years.
Review, 4531 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |