The New Age was a British literary magazine, noted for its wide influence under the editorship of A. R. Orage from 1907 to 1922. It began life in 1894 as a publication of the Christian Socialist movement, but in 1907 Alfred Orage and Holbrook Jackson, who had been running the Leeds Arts Club, bought the journal with financial help from George Bernard Shaw. Jackson acted as co-editor only for the first year, after which Orage edited it alone until he sold it in 1922.[1][2] By that time his interests had moved towards mysticism, and the quality and circulation of the journal had declined. According to Brown University, "The New Age helped to shape modernism in literature and the arts from 1907 to 1922". [3] [4]
The magazine was founded as a Journal of Christian liberalism and Socialism, published as early as 1894. [5] Orage and Jackson re-oriented it to promote the ideas of Nietzsche, Fabian socialism and later a form of Guild socialism. Opposing viewpoints and arguments were put forward in The New Age, even on issues upon which Orage had strong opinions. Topics covered in detail were the role of private property in a debate between H. G. Wells and G. B. Shaw against G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, the need for a socialist party (distinct from the newly-formed Labour Party) and women's suffrage. On this last point, the editorial line moved from initial support to bitter opposition by 1912. As The New Age moved away from Fabian politics, the leaders of the Fabian Society, Beatrice and Sydney Webb founded the journal The New Statesman to counter its effect in 1913, and this combined with the growing distance between Orage and the mainstream left reduced its influence. By then, the editorial line supported Guild socialism, expounded in articles by G. D. H. Cole and S. G. Hobson among others. After the First World War Orage began to support the Social Credit theory of C. H. Douglas.
The journal appeared weekly, and featured a wide cross-section of writers with an interest in literature and the arts, but also politics, spiritualism and economics. The journal was also one of the first places in England in which Sigmund Freud's ideas were discussed before the First World War, in particular by Maurice Eder, an early British psychoanalyst.
"The New Age" was also highly preoccupied with the definition and development of Modernism in the visual arts, literature and music, and consistently observed, reviewed and contributed to the activities of the movement.
With its woodprint illustrations reminiscent of artwork by the German Expressionists, its mixture of culture, politics, Nietzschean philosophy and spiritualism, and its non-standard appearance, The New Age has been cited as the English equivalent of the German Expressionist periodical Der Sturm, a journal to which it bore a striking resemblance.
Notable contributors
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References
- ^ Modernism In and Beyond the “Little Magazines”, Winter 2007, Professor Ann Ardis, Brown University
- ^ The New Age in Encyclopedia Britannica article on Orage
- ^ Modernist Journals Project Has Grant to Digitize Rare Magazines Brown University Press Releases, April 19, 2007]
- ^ Scholes, Robert. "The New Age Orage, A. R. London: The New Age Press, 1907/1922". Modernist Journals Project. Brown University. http://dl.lib.brown.edu/mjp/render.php?view=mjp_object&id=1158589415603817. Retrieved 24 November 2009.
- ^ History of the New Age periodical, Brown University, Modernist Journals Project
External links
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