ABSTRACT
‘It was about the end of 1828’, writes Carlyle in The Life of John Sterling, ‘that readers of periodical literature, and quidnuncs in those departments, began to report the appearance, in a Paper called the Athenaeum, of writings showing a superior brilliancy and height of aim.’ By 1919, when Arthur Rowntree purchased the Paper, both brilliancy and height of aim had long departed. It had only just survived the War, as a monthly ‘Journal of Reconstruction’ scrappily edited by Arthur Greenwood; and history would scarcely have repeated itself had he not reconstituted it entirely as a weekly ‘Journal of English and Foreign Literature, Science, the Fine Arts, Music and the Drama’, and, by a stroke of inspiration, offered Murry the editorship. ‘The new opening seemed to come as a godsend,’ Murry writes, ‘for our financial difficulties were considerable.’.
