The Times Literary Supplement
Encyclopedia
The Times Literary Supplement (or TLS, on the front page from 1969) is a weekly literary review published in London by News International
, a subsidiary of News Corporation
.
, but became a separate publication in 1914. Many distinguished writers have been contributors, including T. S. Eliot
, Henry James
, and Virginia Woolf
, but reviews were normally anonymous until 1974, during which year signed reviews were gradually introduced under the editorship of John Gross
.
This aroused great controversy at the time. “Anonymity had once been appropriate when it was a general rule at other publications, but it had ceased to be so,” Gross said. “In addition I personally felt that reviewers ought to take responsibility for their opinions.”
Martin Amis
was a member of the editorial staff early in his career. Philip Larkin
's poem Aubade, effectively his final poetic work, was first published in the Christmas
-week issue of the TLS in 1977. While it has long been regarded as one of the world's pre-eminent critical publications, its history is not without gaffes. For instance, the publication missed James Joyce
entirely and only commented negatively on Lucian Freud
from 1945 until 1978, when a portrait of his appeared on the cover.
The TLS cooperates closely with The Times; its online version is hosted on the Times website, and its editorial offices are based in Times House, Pennington Street, London. The current editor is Peter Stothard
, a former editor of The Times itself. He succeeded Ferdinand Mount
in 2003.
In recent decades, the TLS has included essays, reviews and poems by John Ashbery
, Italo Calvino
, Patricia Highsmith
, Milan Kundera
, Philip Larkin, Mario Vargas Llosa
, Joseph Brodsky
, Gore Vidal
, Orhan Pamuk
, Geoffrey Hill
, Seamus Heaney
, among others.
Many writers have described the publication as indispensable. For example, prize-winning Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa
said: “I have been reading the TLS since I learned English 40 years ago. It is the most serious, authoritative, witty, diverse and stimulating cultural publication in all the five languages I speak.”
's novel Molloy
(1953), in which Molloy relates that:
Another example is in George Orwell
's Keep the Aspidistra Flying
, in which the central character Gordon Comstock's collection of poetry was reviewed by the "Times Lit. Supp.".
News International
News International Ltd is the United Kingdom newspaper publishing division of News Corporation. Until June 2002, it was called News International plc....
, a subsidiary of News Corporation
News Corporation
News Corporation or News Corp. is an American multinational media conglomerate. It is the world's second-largest media conglomerate as of 2011 in terms of revenue, and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009, although the BBC remains the world's largest broadcaster...
.
History
The TLS first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to The TimesThe Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, but became a separate publication in 1914. Many distinguished writers have been contributors, including T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
, Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
, and Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
, but reviews were normally anonymous until 1974, during which year signed reviews were gradually introduced under the editorship of John Gross
John Gross
John Gross FRSL was an eminent English author, anthologist, literary and theatrical critic. The Spectator magazine called Gross “the best-read man in Britain”, as did The Guardian...
.
This aroused great controversy at the time. “Anonymity had once been appropriate when it was a general rule at other publications, but it had ceased to be so,” Gross said. “In addition I personally felt that reviewers ought to take responsibility for their opinions.”
Martin Amis
Martin Amis
Martin Louis Amis is a British novelist, the author of many novels including Money and London Fields . He is currently Professor of Creative Writing at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester, but will step down at the end of the 2010/11 academic year...
was a member of the editorial staff early in his career. Philip Larkin
Philip Larkin
Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL is widely regarded as one of the great English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century...
's poem Aubade, effectively his final poetic work, was first published in the Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
-week issue of the TLS in 1977. While it has long been regarded as one of the world's pre-eminent critical publications, its history is not without gaffes. For instance, the publication missed James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
entirely and only commented negatively on Lucian Freud
Lucian Freud
Lucian Michael Freud, OM, CH was a British painter. Known chiefly for his thickly impasted portrait and figure paintings, he was widely considered the pre-eminent British artist of his time...
from 1945 until 1978, when a portrait of his appeared on the cover.
The TLS cooperates closely with The Times; its online version is hosted on the Times website, and its editorial offices are based in Times House, Pennington Street, London. The current editor is Peter Stothard
Peter Stothard
Sir Peter Stothard is a British newspaper editor. He currently edits the Times Literary Supplement, and edited The Times from 1992 to 2002....
, a former editor of The Times itself. He succeeded Ferdinand Mount
Ferdinand Mount
Sir William Robert Ferdinand Mount, 3rd Baronet , usually known as Ferdinand Mount, is a British writer and novelist, columnist for The Sunday Times and commentator on politics, and Conservative Party politician...
in 2003.
In recent decades, the TLS has included essays, reviews and poems by John Ashbery
John Ashbery
John Lawrence Ashbery is an American poet. He has published more than twenty volumes of poetry and won nearly every major American award for poetry, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. But Ashbery's work still proves controversial...
, Italo Calvino
Italo Calvino
Italo Calvino was an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels. His best known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy , the Cosmicomics collection of short stories , and the novels Invisible Cities and If on a winter's night a traveler .Lionised in Britain and the United States,...
, Patricia Highsmith
Patricia Highsmith
Patricia Highsmith was an American novelist and short-story writer most widely known for her psychological thrillers, which led to more than two dozen film adaptations. Her first novel, Strangers on a Train, has been adapted for stage and screen numerous times, notably by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951...
, Milan Kundera
Milan Kundera
Milan Kundera , born 1 April 1929, is a writer of Czech origin who has lived in exile in France since 1975, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1981. He is best known as the author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, and The Joke. Kundera has written in...
, Philip Larkin, Mario Vargas Llosa
Mario Vargas Llosa
Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquis of Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian-Spanish writer, politician, journalist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate. Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading authors of his generation...
, Joseph Brodsky
Joseph Brodsky
Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky , was a Russian poet and essayist.In 1964, 23-year-old Brodsky was arrested and charged with the crime of "social parasitism" He was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1972 and settled in America with the help of W. H. Auden and other supporters...
, Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...
, Orhan Pamuk
Orhan Pamuk
Ferit Orhan Pamuk , generally known simply as Orhan Pamuk, is a Turkish novelist. He is also the Robert Yik-Fong Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, where he teaches comparative literature and writing....
, Geoffrey Hill
Geoffrey Hill
Geoffrey Hill is an English poet, professor emeritus of English literature and religion, and former co-director of the Editorial Institute, at Boston University. Hill has been considered to be among the most distinguished poets of his generation...
, Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney is an Irish poet, writer and lecturer. He lives in Dublin. Heaney has received the Nobel Prize in Literature , the Golden Wreath of Poetry , T. S. Eliot Prize and two Whitbread prizes...
, among others.
Many writers have described the publication as indispensable. For example, prize-winning Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa
Mario Vargas Llosa
Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquis of Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian-Spanish writer, politician, journalist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate. Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading authors of his generation...
said: “I have been reading the TLS since I learned English 40 years ago. It is the most serious, authoritative, witty, diverse and stimulating cultural publication in all the five languages I speak.”
The TLS in literature
The Times Literary Supplement has appeared in works of fiction. One of the most backhanded of such mentions appears in the English translation of Samuel BeckettSamuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
's novel Molloy
Molloy (novel)
Molloy is a novel by Samuel Beckett. The English translation is by Beckett and Patrick Bowles.-Plot introduction:On first appearance the book concerns two different characters, both of whom have interior monologues in the book. As the story moves along the two characters are distinguished by name...
(1953), in which Molloy relates that:
... in winter, under my greatcoat, I wrapped myself in swathes of newspaper, and did not shed them until the earth awoke, for good, in April. The Times Literary Supplement was admirably adapted to this purpose, of a neverfailing toughness and impermeability. Even farts made no impression on it.
Another example is in George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
's Keep the Aspidistra Flying
Keep the Aspidistra Flying
Keep the Aspidistra Flying, first published 1936, is a socially critical novel by George Orwell. It is set in 1930s London. The main theme is Gordon Comstock's romantic ambition to defy worship of the money-god and status, and the dismal life that results....
, in which the central character Gordon Comstock's collection of poetry was reviewed by the "Times Lit. Supp.".
Editors
- James ThursfieldJames ThursfieldSir James Richard Thursfield was a British naval historian and journalist. As well as being an authority on naval matters, he was also the first editor of the Times Literary Supplement....
1902 - Bruce Richmond 1902
- D. L. Murray (David Leslie Murray) 1938
- Stanley MorisonStanley MorisonStanley Morison was an English typographer, designer and historian of printing.Born in Wanstead, Essex, Morison spent most of his childhood and early adult years at the family home in Fairfax Road, Harringay...
1945 - Alan Pryce-Jones 1948
- Arthur Crook 1959
- John GrossJohn GrossJohn Gross FRSL was an eminent English author, anthologist, literary and theatrical critic. The Spectator magazine called Gross “the best-read man in Britain”, as did The Guardian...
1974 - Jeremy TreglownJeremy TreglownJeremy Treglown is a British author and literary critic, who has written biographies of Roald Dahl, Henry Green and V.S. Pritchett. He is Professor of English at the University of Warwick....
1981 - Ferdinand MountFerdinand MountSir William Robert Ferdinand Mount, 3rd Baronet , usually known as Ferdinand Mount, is a British writer and novelist, columnist for The Sunday Times and commentator on politics, and Conservative Party politician...
1991 - Peter StothardPeter StothardSir Peter Stothard is a British newspaper editor. He currently edits the Times Literary Supplement, and edited The Times from 1992 to 2002....
2003
See also
- The New York Review of BooksThe New York Review of BooksThe New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...
- London Review of BooksLondon Review of BooksThe London Review of Books is a fortnightly British magazine of literary and intellectual essays.-History:The LRB was founded in 1979, during the year-long lock-out at The Times, by publisher A...
- List of literary magazines
Further reading
- Derwent May Critical Times: The History of the "Times Literary Supplement", 2001, Harper Collins, ISBN 0007114494 - The official history