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 in 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 McCrindle's goal was to strike a balance between leading writers and new, sometimes unpublished, ones, and, as the title implies, between American and British writers.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, 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, 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.
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, 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

, 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, 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 Howard, Larry Rivers, Mabel Pakenham-Walsh and Colin Spencer.

Archives

, 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.
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.
document McCrindle's art collecting, art donations, philanthropy, family affairs, and personal estate.
All issues of Transatlantic Review have been digitized and archived at

Contents of ''Stories from the Transatlantic Review''