From the Historical Avant-Garde to Highbrow Coterie Modernism: The Little Review’s Wartime Advances and Retreats

Shortly after the Anglo-American literary renaissance emerged, the First World War erupted across Europe, influencing the development of one of modernism’s foundational enterprises. The Little Review (1914-1922) originally exemplified the historical avant-garde through its heterogeneous contents that produced a cross pollination of aesthetic and political radicalism. As it intensified its counter-cultural activism in opposition to Europe’s global conflict, however, economic, political, and cultural pressures converged to reshape its editorial agenda. Immediately after the U.S. entered the war in April 1917, Ezra Pound became Foreign Editor. Under his influence, the magazine’s material and business practices changed and its table of contents were filled with his coterie—resulting in a re-imagined publication context that reflected highbrow coterie modernism to ensure, at least for a while, The Little Review’s success in a literary marketplace