Monday, November 22, 2010

Archived treasures





Love this 1966 edition of The Paris Review (No 39) I found in a secondhand book stall in New York a couple of years ago. 
Great cover art and scratchy thick textured pages. And look how fantastic the line-up is on the contents page! The letters of ee.cummings to Ezra Pound, an interview with Harold Pinter and poetry by Pablo Neruda - all published while they were not only alive and kicking but still writing new material. 
The magazine is still going strong today but it's fascinating to see who has contributed to past editions. Back issues, from as early as No 7 published in 1954, are still available via the website. I'd love to get my hands on that one - with illustrations by Picasso and Warhol - going for US$100, or No 28 1962 featuring an interview with Pound and fiction by Samuel Beckett and Jorge Luis Borges for US$80...
For now I'll content myself with reading the magazine's regular Art of Fiction series online via the Archive section (1953 onwards) which includes such contributors as Ernest Hemingway, Graham Greene, E.M. Forster and a myriad of other greats.

1 comment:

Sam :) said...

Beautiful... :) x