{{Short description|Former British literary magazine}} {{About|the British literary magazine|other uses of ''criterion'' or ''criteria''|Criterion (disambiguation){{!}}Criterion}}{{Infobox periodical | title = The Criterion | image_caption = | editor = T. S. Eliot | frequency = Quarterly (for most of its run), Monthly (1927–28) | publisher = Faber and Gwyer Publishing (later Faber and Faber) | founder = T. S. Eliot | country = United Kingdom | language = English | website = | image = | established = October 1922 | ceased = January 1939 | genre = Literary magazine | notes = }} {{Italic title}} '''''The Criterion''''' was a British literary magazine published from October 1922 to January 1939.<ref>''T. S. Eliot's Criterion: The Editor and His Contributors'', by Herbert Howarth (1950) {{JSTOR|1768640}}</ref> ''The Criterion'' (or the ''Criterion'') was, for most of its run, a quarterly journal, although for a period in 1927–28 it was published monthly. It was created by the poet, dramatist, and literary critic T. S. Eliot who served as its editor for its entire run.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/publishing/Magazine-publishing|title=History of publishing – Magazine publishing|work=Encyclopedia Britannica|access-date=2018-02-27|language=en}}</ref>
== Mission and content == Eliot's goal was to make it a literary review dedicated to the maintenance of standards and the reunification of a European intellectual community.<ref>http://app.cul.columbia.edu:8080/ac/handle/10022/AC:P:1009{{Dead link|date=June 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=no }} Academic Commons Columbia University Libraries</ref> Although in a letter to a friend in 1935 George Orwell had said "for pure snootiness it beats anything I have ever seen",<ref>"An Age Like This" (1936) (''The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell Volume 1 – An Age Like This 1939–1940'' p.197 (Penguin) )</ref> writing in 1944 he referred to it as "possibly the best literary paper we have ever had".<ref>"As I Please" (1944) (''The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell Volume 3 – As I Please 1943–1945'' p. 197 (Penguin) )</ref>
The first issue of the magazine, of which 600 copies were printed,<ref name="The New York Times">[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE7DA113AF936A1575AC0A96E948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=7 "Anything I Write Is Good: Letters of T.S. Eliot"] ''The New York Times''</ref> included Eliot's ''The Waste Land''. In its first year, it received contributions from Luigi Pirandello, Virginia Woolf, Ezra Pound, E. M. Forster, and W. B. Yeats.<ref name="The Nursery of Genius">Sabloff, Nicholas. "The Nursery of Genius: A brief survey of ten magazines of influence" https://web.archive.org/web/20090504235924/http://www.nyrm.org/2007/sabloff_well.html</ref> Other contributors over the years included Wyndham Lewis, Herbert Read, John Middleton Murry, John Gould Fletcher, W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, and Hart Crane. Nine contributions in 1924 and 1925 were made, pseudonymously, by Eliot's first wife, Vivienne Haigh-Wood,<ref>Gallup, Donald. ''T. S. Eliot: A Bibliography (A Revised and Extended Edition)'' p. 211 (Harcourt Brace & World 1969)</ref> who suggested the journal's name.<ref>{{cite book |title=T. S. Eliot |last=Ackroyd |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Ackroyd |year=1984 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |location=New York |isbn=0-671-53043-7 |page=[https://archive.org/details/tseliotlife00ackr/page/123 123] |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/tseliotlife00ackr/page/123 }}</ref> ''The Criterion'' became the first English periodical to publish Marcel Proust, Paul Valéry and Jean Cocteau.<ref name="The Nursery of Genius" /><ref>Ackroyd, p. 248</ref>
Lady Rothermere (Mary Lilian Share, the wife of the London newspaper magnate Harold Harmsworth, Viscount Rothermere) originally financed the journal, but on reading the first issue, she wrote three letters to Eliot criticising it, and suggested ideas for later issues, including a story by Katherine Mansfield.<ref name= "The New York Times"/> After four years she withdrew her support and the magazine was acquired by Eliot's employer, Faber and Gwyer Publishing (later Faber and Faber). From January 1926, when Faber became the publisher, though January 1927 the journal was titled ''The New Criterion''. The issues from May 1927 though March 1928 were titled ''The Monthly Criterion''.<ref>Gallup, p. 14</ref>
Some of Eliot's other contributions include his short story "On the Eve", commentaries, and poems, including early versions of "The Hollow Men" and "Ash Wednesday".
Together with its rival, ''The Adelphi'', edited by John Middleton Murry, it was the leading literary journal of the period.<ref>{{Cite book |first=Jason |last=Harding |chapter=Idea of a Literary Review: T. S. Eliot and ''The Criterion'' |editor-last1=Brooker |editor-last2=Thacker |editor-first1=Peter |editor-first2=Andrew |title=The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines |volume=I: Britain and Ireland 1880–1955 |pages=346–363 |year=2013 |publisher=Oxford University Press |chapter-url=https://academic.oup.com/book/2433/chapter-abstract/142686329 |language=en |doi=10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199654291.003.0021 |isbn=978-0-19-965429-1}}</ref> While the former's definitions of literature were based on romanticism allied to liberalism and a subjective approach, Eliot used his publication for expounding his defence of classicism, tradition, and Catholicism.<ref name="The Nursery of Genius"/> In this contest Eliot emerged a clear victor, in the sense that in the London of the 1930s he had taken the centre of the critical stage.<ref>David Goldie, ''A Critical Difference: T. S. Eliot and John Middleton Murry in English Literary Criticism, 1919–1928'' (1998), pp. 2–3.</ref>
==External links== The Criterion (in 18 volumes) is hosted at Internet Archive:
* Vol. I: October 1922 – July 1923 * Vol. II: October 1923 – July 1924 * Vol. III: October 1924 – July 1925 * Vol. IV: January 1926– October 1926 * Vol. V: January 1927 – June 1927 * Vol. VI: July 1927 – December 1927 * Vol. VII: January 1928 – June 1928 * Vol. VIII: September 1928 – July 1929 * Vol. IX: October 1929 – July 1930 * Vol. X: October 1930 – July 1931 * Vol. XI: October 1931 – July 1932 * Vol. XII: October 1932 - July 1933 * Vol. XIII: October 1933 – July 1934 * Vol. XIV: October 1934 – July 1935 * Vol. XV: October 1935 - July 1936 * Vol. XVI: October 1936 – July 1937 * Vol. XVII: October 1937 – July 1938 * Vol. XVIII: October 1938 – July 1939
==References== {{Reflist}}
{{T. S. Eliot}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Criterion}} Category:1922 establishments in the United Kingdom Category:1939 disestablishments in the United Kingdom Category:Monthly magazines published in the United Kingdom Category:Quarterly magazines published in the United Kingdom Category:Defunct literary magazines published in the United Kingdom Category:Magazines established in 1922 Category:Magazines disestablished in 1939 Category:T. S. Eliot