Transatlantic Review (1959–1977)

Transatlantic Review was a literary journal founded and edited by Joseph F. McCrindle in 1959, and published at first in Rome, then London and New York. McCrindle revived the title of the original Paris Transatlantic Review founded by Ford Madox Ford[1] in 1924.

Transatlantic Review
Joseph McCrindle's Transatlantic Review
ran for 60 issues between 1959 and 1977.
Categoriesliterary journal
FounderJoseph F. McCrindle
Year founded1959
Final issue1977
ISSN0041-1078
"Transatlantic Review" redirects here. For the 1924 magazine edited by Ford Madox Ford, see Transatlantic Review (1924).

History

McCrindle's first intention was to publish short stories and poetry that he had not been able to place as a literary agent. He was inspired in part by the periodical Botteghe Oscure, which was based in Rome and published by Marguerite Caetani. Eugene Walter provided a connection between the two; after helping launch The Paris Review, he edited Caetani's magazine for a while and was a contributing editor to Transatlantic Review from the third issue until the last.

George Garrett was one of a group of initially credited editors, including William Goldman, and by issue 3 became the poetry editor, continuing alongside B. S. Johnson up until issue 39. Another significant contributing editor was the playwright, poet and actor Heathcote Williams.

In the long run, TR, as it was often called, brought together a mixture of essays, interviews, short stories and poetry in a publication that ran for 60 issues between 1959 and 1977. Seven O. Henry Award-winning stories came from its pages. McCrindle's goal was to strike a balance between leading writers and new, sometimes unpublished, ones, and, as the title implies, between American and British writers.

B. S. Johnson was eventually the sole poetry editor and assembled the feature, "New Transatlantic Poetry". He also proposed the annual Erotica competition, which was open to fiction, poetry and illustration and ran for three years. Prize-winners included Paul Ableman, Diana Athill, Gavin Ewart, Giles Gordon, D. M. Thomas, Jerry Stahl, Jay Jeff Jones, Trevor Hoyle, Patrick Hughes and Steve Barthelme.

Issue 52 (Autumn 1975), featured An Anthology of New American Poetry, compiled by Gerard Malanga. It included work by Charles Bukowski, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Louis Zukofsky, George Oppen, Jonathan Williams, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, Harold Norse and Lou Reed.

After a decade, McCrindle selected the magazine's best for his Stories from the Transatlantic Review (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970; Penguin, 1974), an anthology that included Paul Bowles, Jerome Charyn, Bruce Jay Friedman, Penelope Gilliatt, William Goldman and Joyce Carol Oates. McCrindle collected the interviews in Behind the Scenes: Theater and Film Interviews from the Transatlantic Review (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971).

The final issue was published June 1977. An announcement appeared in the penultimate issue of the magazine saying that the title would continue as an annual review but this idea was not pursued. After he folded the magazine, McCrindle continued to support new writing talent through the Henfield Foundation (later renamed the Joseph F. McCrindle Foundation), awarding annual Henfield Prizes for the best short stories from writing programs throughout the United States. He died July 11, 2008 at his home in New York City.

Writers

J. G. Ballard, Samuel Beckett, Anthony Burgess, William S. Burroughs, Jean Cocteau, William Faulkner, Alan Lelchuk, Robert Grossbach, Iris Murdoch, Alan Sillitoe, John Updike, Richard Yates, Harold Pinter, William Trevor, John Banville and other well-known authors appeared in the publication. Many issues featured interviews with theater and film directors, authors and playwrights, such as Eugene Walter's 1960 interview with Gore Vidal and Giles Gordon's 1964 interview with Joe Orton, which appeared shortly before Orton was murdered. Other interviewees included Edward Albee, Burgess (twice), Federico Fellini, William Gaskill, William Inge and Christopher Isherwood, Pinter and Peter Yates.

After TR was shut down in 1977, annual fiction prizes were given by the Henfield Foundation, later renamed the Joseph F. McCrindle Foundation. In 2011, the McCrindle Foundation set up endowments to support fiction prizes at five graduate writing programs: Columbia University, University of Virginia, University of Iowa, University of Michigan, and University of California at Irvine.

Illustrators

The only issue of Transatlantic Review that did not contain an illustration was the debut issue. The second issue had only one, by Jean Cocteau, but illustration soon became a staple item, usually unrelated to the text but in some cases complementing short stories or articles. Contributors of illustration included Dylan Thomas, Peter Farmer, Elaine de Kooning, Daniel Mroz, Mervyn Peake, Patrick Procktor, Kaffe Fassett, Mike McGear, Heathcote Williams,John(H) Howard, Larry Rivers, Mabel Pakenham-Walsh and Colin Spencer.[2]

Archives

The Transatlantic Review papers, available at Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University, include manuscripts by TR contributors such as J.G. Ballard, Ann Beattie, Jorge Luis Borges, Paul Bowles, William Burroughs, Ian McEwan, Joyce Carol Oates, Edna O’Brien, Grace Paley, Harold Pinter, Paul Theroux, William Trevor, John Updike, and Richard Yates.

The Joseph F. McCrindle papers at Columbia University Libraries Archival Collections include, in addition to extensive personal correspondence, letters and manuscripts by L.P. Hartley, Philip Roth, and other writers represented by McCrindle when he was a literary agent.

Digitized papers at the Archives of American Art document McCrindle's art collecting, art donations, philanthropy, family affairs, and personal estate.

All issues of Transatlantic Review have been digitized and archived at JSTOR.

Contents of Stories from the Transatlantic Review
  • "Introduction" • Joseph F. McCrindle
  • "Music to Lay Eggs By" • Thomas Bridges • 1968
  • "Home Is" • Morris Lurie • 1968
  • "The Road" • Alan Sillitoe • 1968
  • "Summer Voices" • John Banville • 1968
  • "Making Changes" • Leonard Michaels • 1969
  • "My Sister and Me" • Asa Baber, Jr. • 1967
  • "Before the Operation" • Paul Breslow • 1967
  • "The Collector" • Austin C. Clarke • 1967
  • "Sing, Shaindele, Sing" • Jerome Charyn • 1966
  • "Black Barbecue" • Daniel Spicehandler • 1966
  • "The Adult Education Class" [from Eating People Is Wrong] • Malcolm Bradbury • 1959
  • "During the Jurassic" • John Updike • 1966
  • "Acme Rooms and Sweet Marjorie Russell" • Hugh Allyn Hunt • 1966
  • "The Zodiacs" • Jay Neugeboren • 1969
  • "Dying" • Joyce Carol Oates • 1966
  • "The Redhead" • Penelope Gilliatt • 1965
  • "Girl in a White Dress" • Edward Franklin • 1964
  • "Changed" • Norma Meacock • 1964
  • "A Meeting in Middle Age" • William Trevor • 1964
  • "The World’s Fastest Human" • Irvin Faust • 1964
  • "The Siege" • Sol Yurick • 1963
  • "The Enemy" • Bruce Jay Friedman • 1963
  • "Simple Arithmetic" • Virginia Moriconi • 1963
  • "The Hyena" • Paul Bowles • 1962
  • "The Fair of San Gennaro" • John McPhee • 1961
  • "Ismael" • Alfred Chester • 1961
  • "Francois Yattend" • Jean-Claude Van Itallie • 1961
  • "The Star Blanket" • Shirley Schoonover • 1961
  • "A Game of Catch" • George Garrett • 1960
  • "The Educated Girl" • V. S. Pritchett • 1960
  • "Johnny Dio and the Sugar Plum Burglars" • Harry D. Miller • 1960
  • "At Home with the Colonel" • Frank Tuohy • 1962
  • "A Different Thing" • Walter Clemons • 1959
  • "The Ice Cream Eat" • William Goldman • 1959
  • "Biographical Notes"

References
  1. Bernard J Poli (1967). Ford Madox Ford and the Transatlantic review. Syracuse University Press. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-8156-2105-8. Retrieved 26 August 2010.
  2. "The Transatlantic Review No. 12, Notes on Contributors". JSTOR 41514022. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
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