Chicago Review was founded in 1946 by two University of Chicago graduate students, James Radcliffe Squires and Carrolyn Dillard, in response to what they described as "an exaggerated utilitarianism on the college." They aimed to present a "contemporary standard of good writing" and demanded "that the writers do better than they thought they could." Chicago Review exclusively published work by students and faculty members of the university until the Fall/Winter issue of 1953, when F.N. "Chip" Karmtaz assumed editorship of the magazine.
Before censorship by the university administration, Chicago Review was an early and leading promoter of the Beat Movement in American literature. In the autumn of 1958, it published an excerpt from Burroughs' Naked Lunch, which was judged obscene by the Chicago Daily News and sparked public outcry; this episode led to the censorship of the following issue, to which the editors responded by resigning and starting a new magazine in which to freely publish Beat fiction. Chicago Review became the subject of further controversy in 1959, when the University of Chicago prohibited editor Irving Rosenthal from publishing a winter issue that was to include Jack Kerouac's Sebastian Midnite, a thirty-page excerpt from William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch and a thirty-page work by Edward Dahlberg. The concern of the university was that the work might be deemed obscene. All but one editor quit the paper. Rosenthal, Ginsberg, John Fles, and others responded by founding Big Table; its first issue included ten chapters of Naked Lunch. In the context of the ongoing nationwide conflict between traditional versus Beat fiction, the impact of the creation of Big Table was such that, as Thomas Pynchon recalled "'what happened at Chicago' became shorthand for some unimaginable subversive threat" among the literature college students at Cornell University
Special Features
Chicago Review often publishes special features within its issues. In the summer of 1958, it published Volume 12, Number 3 with a special section titled "On Zen" that featured contributions from writers such as Alan Watts and Jack Kerouac. Through this issue, Chicago Review played a significant role in introducing Zen to the American public. Most of the magazine's special features are included in double issues, the first of which was Issue 17:2/3 in 1964. Featuring new Chicago writing and art, the issue included work by poets such as Paul Carroll and Lucien Stryk. Later double issues, such as Issue 38:01/02, Contemporary Indian Literatures and Issue 46:3/4, New Polish Writing, established Chicago Review as a premier literary magazine for publishing literary translations. Issue 60:3,The Infrarrealistas, is the first collection of the Infrarealist poets’ Spanish writing in English translation. Other notable features published by Chicago Review include a special section on Canadian poet Lisa Robertson in Issue 51:4/52:1, an A.R. Ammons feature in Issue 57:1/2, and a special issue on Ed Roberson and Chicago Modernists, Issue 59:4/60:1. Chicago Review occasionally also publishes triple issues, such as Issue 50:2/3/4, which includes a centenary portfolio on Louis Zukofsky, and Issue 49:3/4 & 50:1, which contains a special section on poet Edward Dorn.
