The
Virginia Quarterly Review is a
literary magazineA literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry and essays along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters...
in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It was founded in 1925 by
James Southall WilsonJames Southall Wilson was an author, professor, and founder of the Virginia Quarterly Review. He organized the 1931 Southern Writers Conference. His wife, Julia Tyler, was the granddaughter of President John Tyler. Wilson wrote the College of William & Mary's spirit song, "Our Alma Mater."...
, at the request of
University of VirginiaThe University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
president
E. A. AldermanEdwin Anderson Alderman served as the President of three universities. The University of Virginia's Alderman Library is named after him, as is in Wilmington.Alderman graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1882...
. The self-described
"National Journal of Literature and Discussion" is a quarterly publication from the University of Virginia that includes
poetryPoetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
,
fictionFiction is a branch of literature which deals, in part or in whole, with temporally contrafactual events...
, book reviews, essays,
photographyPhotography is the process, activity and art of creating still or moving pictures by recording radiation on a sensitive medium, such as a photographic film, or an electronic sensor...
, and
comicsComics is a graphic medium in which images are utilized in order to convey a sequential narrative; the term, derived from massive early use to convey comic themes, came to be applied to all uses of this medium including those which are far from comic...
from some of the nation's most notable writers, photographers and artists.
As of 2007, poems from the magazine have appeared in the
1990The Best American Poetry 1990, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor Jorie Graham....
,
1993The Best American Poetry 1993, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor Louise Glück.-Poets and poems included:-External links:* , with links to each publication where the poems originally appeared...
,
2000The Best American Poetry 2000 , a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor Rita Dove....
,
2005The Best American Poetry 2005, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor Paul Muldoon....
,
2006The Best American Poetry 2006, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman , and poet Billy Collins, guest editor....
and
2007The Best American Poetry 2007, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by poet Heather McHugh, guest editor, who made the final selections, and David Lehman, the general editor for the series....
editions of The Best American Poetry series.
Establishment
In 1915, President Alderman announced his intentions to create a university publication that would be "an organ of liberal opinion":
He appealed to financial backers of the university for financial contributions, and over the next nine years an endowment was raised to fund the publication while it became established. Alderman announced the establishment of The Virginia Quarterly Review in the fall of 1924, saying it would provide:
The inaugural issue was released in spring of 1925, and the 160-page volume featured writing by
Gamaliel BradfordGamaliel Bradford was an American biographer, critic, poet, and dramatist. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, the sixth of seven men called Gamaliel Bradford in unbroken succession, of whom the first, Gamaliel Bradford, was a great-grandson of Governor William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony...
,
Archibald HendersonArchibald Henderson was an American professor of mathematics who wrote on a variety of subjects, including drama and history. He was born at Salisbury, N. C., was educated at the University of North Carolina , and studied more at Chicago, Cambridge, and Berlin universities, and at the Sorbonne...
,
Luigi PirandelloLuigi Pirandello was an Italian dramatist, novelist, and short story writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934,for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage." Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and c. 40 plays, some of which are written in...
,
Witter BynnerHarold Witter Bynner was an American poet, writer and scholar, known for his long residence in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at what is now the Inn of the Turquoise Bear.-Early life:...
,
William Cabell BruceWilliam Cabell Bruce was an American politician and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who represented the State of Maryland in the United States Senate from 1923 to 1929....
, among two dozen other notable, mostly southern, writers.
Essays
- Cleanth Brooks
Cleanth Brooks was an influential American literary critic and professor. He is best known for his contributions to New Criticism in the mid-twentieth century and for revolutionizing the teaching of poetry in American higher education...
- Arthur C. Clarke
Sri Lankabhimanya Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, most famous for the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, written in collaboration with director Stanley Kubrick, a collaboration which also produced the film of the same name; and as a...
- Ted Conover
Ted Conover is an American author and journalist. A graduate of Denver's Manual High School and Amherst College and a Marshall Scholar, he is also a distinguished writer-in-residence in the Department of Journalism at New York University...
- Ernestine Evans
Ernestine Evans was a journalist, editor, author and literary agent.-Life:Born in Omaha, Nebraska, she lived in Elkhart, Indiana during her childhood and attended the University of Chicago, receiving a Bachelor of Philosophy degree in 1912. She was arrested in 1917, along with Peggy Baird Johns...
- John Ghazvinian
John Ghazvinian is an American journalist and historian known for his writing on African oil politics. He is the author of Untapped: The Scramble for Africa's Oil , an expose of the petroleum industry in Africa...
- Aldous Huxley
Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. He spent the later part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death in 1963...
- Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
- H. L. Mencken
Henry Louis "H. L." Mencken , was an American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, acerbic critic of American life and culture, and a student of American English...
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and assumed a role as an advocate for civil rights...
- Salman Rushdie
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie is a British Indian novelist and essayist. He achieved fame with his second novel, Midnight's Children , which won the Booker Prize in 1981. Much of his early fiction is set on the Indian subcontinent...
- Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was an English philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. Although he spent the majority of his life in England, he was born in Wales, where he also died.Russell led the British "revolt against idealism" in the...
- Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy and Existentialism, and his work continues to influence further...
- Allen Tate
John Orley Allen Tate was an American poet, essayist, social commentator, and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1943 to 1944.-Biography:...
- Eudora Welty
Eudora Alice Welty was an award-winning American author who wrote short stories and novels about the American South. Her book, The Optimist's Daughter, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 and Welty was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous awards...
- C. Vann Woodward
Comer Vann Woodward was a pre-eminent American historian focusing primarily on the American South and race relations. He was considered, along with Richard Hofstadter and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., to be one of the most influential historians of the postwar era, 1940s-1970s, both among scholars and...
Fiction
- Steve Almond
Steve Almond is an American writer. Almond was raised in Palo Alto, California and graduated from Henry M. Gunn High School. He received his undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University. He spent seven years as a newspaper reporter, mostly in El Paso and at the Miami New Times. He has been...
- Jacob M. Appel
Jacob M. Appel is an American author, bioethicist and social critic. He is best known for his short stories, his work as a playwright, and his writing in the fields of reproductive ethics, organ donation, neuroethics and euthanasia....
- Tom Barbash
Tom Barbash is an American writer of fiction and nonfiction, educator and critic. He is the author of the novel The Last Good Chance and the bestselling nonfiction work On Top of the World: Cantor Fitzgerald, Howard Lutnick & 9/11: A Story of Loss & Renewal...
- Ann Beattie
Ann Beattie is an American short story writer and novelist. She has received an award for excellence from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and a PEN/Bernard Malamud Award for excellence in the short story form. Her work has been compared to that of Alice Adams, J.D. Salinger,...
- Robert Olen Butler
Robert Olen Butler Jr. is an American fiction writer. His short-story collection, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1993.-Early life:...
- Mark Harris
Mark Harris may refer to:*Mark Harris , Welsh professional bodybuilder*Mark Harris , American writer of the baseball novel Bang the Drum Slowly*Mark Harris English football player...
- Jennifer Haigh
Jennifer Haigh is an American novelist and short story writer.She was born Jennifer Wasilko to a Ukrainian Catholic family in Barnesboro, a Western Pennsylvania coal town 85 miles northeast of Pittsburgh in Cambria County. She attended Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and earned a...
- Ward Just
Ward Just is an American writer. He is the author of 15 novels and numerous short stories.Ward Just graduated from Cranbrook School in 1953. He briefly attended Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. He started his career as a print journalist for the Waukegan News-Sun...
- Etgar Keret
Etgar Keret is an Israeli writer known for his short stories, graphic novels and scriptwriting for film and television.-Biography:...
- D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English author, poet, playwright, essayist and literary critic. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
- Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist. García Márquez, affectionately known as "Gabo" throughout Latin America, is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. In 1982, he was awarded the Nobel...
- Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy, born Charles McCarthy , is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels in the Southern Gothic, western, and post-apocalyptic genres, and has also written plays and screenplays...
- Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates is an American author. Raised in rural, working-class New York, Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over fifty novels, as well as many volumes of short stories, poetry, and non-fiction...
- Katherine Anne Porter
Katherine Anne Porter was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist...
- Peter Taylor
For other people named Peter Taylor, see Peter Taylor.Peter Matthew Hillsman Taylor was a U.S. author and writer....
- Art Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman is an American comics artist, editor, and advocate for the medium of comics, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning comic book memoir, Maus....
- Chris Ware
Franklin Christenson "Chris" Ware is an American comic book artist and cartoonist, best-known for a series of comics called the Acme Novelty Library, and a graphic novel, Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, he resides in Oak Park, Illinois as of 2007.-Style:Ware's...
- Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh was an English writer, best known for such darkly humorous and satirical novels as Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies, Scoop, A Handful of Dust, and The Loved One, as well as for serious works, such as Brideshead Revisited and the Sword of Honour trilogy that clearly...
- H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many genres, including contemporary novels, history, and social commentary....
- Gloria Whelan
Name: Gloria WhelanBorn: November 23,1923Place of birth:Detroit, Michigan, United StatesNationality:AmericanGender: FemaleOccupations: Writer...
- Thomas Wolfe
Thomas Clayton Wolfe was an acclaimed American novelist of the early 20th century.Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels, plus many short stories, dramatic works and novel fragments. He is known for mixing highly original, poetic, rhapsodical, and impressionistic prose with autobiographical writing...
Poetry
- Conrad Aiken
Conrad Potter Aiken was an American novelist and poet, whose work includes poetry, short stories, novels, and an autobiography.-Early years:...
- John Berryman
John Allyn Berryman was an American poet, born in McAlester, Oklahoma. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and often considered one of the founders of the Confessional school of poetry. He was the author of The Dream Songs, which are playful, witty, and...
- Hayden Carruth
Hayden Carruth was an American poet and literary critic. He taught at Syracuse University.-Life:Hayden Carruth grew up in Woodbury, Connecticut, and was educated at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and at the University of Chicago. He lived in Johnson, Vermont for many years...
- Billy Collins
William “Billy” Collins is an American poet. He served two terms as the Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. In his home state, Collins has been recognized as a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library and selected as the New York State Poet for 2004-2006...
- Cecil Day-Lewis
Cecil Day-Lewis CBE was an Irish-born poet, as well as Poet Laureate for Britain between 1968 to 1972, and, under the pseudonym of Nicholas Blake, a mystery writer...
- Mahmoud Darwish
Mahmoud Darwish was a Palestinian poet and author who won numerous awards for his literary output and was regarded as the Palestinian national poet...
- James Dickey
James Lafayette Dickey was an American poet and novelist. He was appointed the eighteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1966.-Early years:...
- Rita Dove
Rita Frances Dove is an American poet and author. She was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1993, the first African American to be appointed, and received a second special appointment in 1999...
- T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM , was a poet, playwright, and literary critic. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Among his most famous writings are The Love Song of J...
- Robert Frost
Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and...
- H.D.
H.D. was an American poet, novelist and memoirist best known for her association with the early 20th century avant-garde Imagist group of poets such as Ezra Pound and Richard Aldington...
- A. E. Housman
- Randall Jarrell
Randall Jarrell was an American poet, critic,children's author, essayist, and novelist. He was the 11th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.-Biography:...
- Marianne Moore
Marianne Moore was a Modernist American poet and writer noted for her irony and wit.- Life :Moore was born in Kirkwood, Missouri, in the manse of the Presbyterian church where her maternal grandfather, John Riddle Warner, served as pastor. She was the daughter of construction engineer and...
- Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean writer and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. Neruda assumed his pen name as a teenager, partly because it was in vogue, partly to hide his poetry from his father, a rigid man who wanted his son to have a "practical"...
- Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Cecile Rich is an American poet, essayist and feminist. She has been called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the [20th] century."-Early life:...
- Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and another for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. H. L. Mencken called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat."-Biography:Sandburg was born in Galesburg,...
- Tom Sleigh
Tom Sleigh is an American poet, dramatist, essayist and academic, who currently lives in New York City. He has published seven books of original poetry, one full-length translation of Euripides' Herakles and a book of essays. At least five of his plays have been produced...
- Henry Taylor
Henry Taylor may refer to:* Henry Taylor , English dramatist* Henry Taylor , U.S. boxer* Henry Taylor , British race car driver...
- Robert Penn Warren
Robert Penn Warren was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He received the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel for his novel All the King's Men and the Pulitzer Prize for...
- William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams , also known as WCW, was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine...
Editors
- James Southall Wilson
James Southall Wilson was an author, professor, and founder of the Virginia Quarterly Review. He organized the 1931 Southern Writers Conference. His wife, Julia Tyler, was the granddaughter of President John Tyler. Wilson wrote the College of William & Mary's spirit song, "Our Alma Mater."...
1925-1931
- Stringfellow Barr
Stringfellow Barr was a historian, author, and former president of St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, where he, together with Scott Buchanan, instituted the Great Books curriculum.Barr was the editor of Virginia Quarterly Review from 1931-1937...
1931-1937
- Lambert Davis 1937-1938
- Lawrence Lee 1938-1942
- Archibald Bolling Shepperson 1942
- Charlotte Kohler
Charlotte Kohler was a literary magazine editor and a university professor. She was born in Richmond, Virginia, attended the city's John Marshall High School, graduated from Vassar College, and obtained both a master's and a PhD from the University of Virginia...
1942-1974
- Staige D. Blackford 1974-2003
- Ted Genoways 2003-