Left Review was a journal of the Writers' International established in 1934 and continued until 1938. Left Review's editorial board was headed by Montagu Slater, Edgell Rickword, Amabel Williams-Ellis, Tom Wintringham and Randall Swingler.
The first issue published a position statement by the Writers' International, declaring Britain's economy and culture were in a state of collapse, and invited responses. The issues that followed published responses, such as the one by Lewis Grassic Gibbon in the February 1935 issue, and opinions on the nature of literature. In 1937 Left Review was subject to criticism after Fredric Warburg revealed in a letter to The New Statesman that Left Review had refused to carry an advertisement for John Dewey's book The Case of Leon Trotsky, which published the report of the Dewey Commission which had defended Trotsky from attacks made on him during Stalin's show trials. In response, Randall Swingler defended the decision not to carry the advertisment, stating "there is a line at which criticism ends and destructive attacks begin, and we regret that this line separates us both from Dr. Goebbels and from Leon Trotsky.".
Famous quotes containing the words left and/or review:
“On her left breast
A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops
I’ th’ bottom of a cowslip.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I review novels to make money, because it is easier for a sluggard to write an article a fortnight than a book a year, because the writer is soothed by the opiate of action, the crank by posing as a good journalist, and having an airhole. I dislike it. I do it and I am always resolving to give it up.”
—Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)