Anniversary …

… London Review of Books: An Incomplete History review – 40 years of the LRB | Books | The Guardian. (Ht tip, Dave Lull.)

The first issue still seems impressive, with William Empson on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, John Bayley’s review of William Golding’s Darkness Visible, and new poems by Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney. Pages reproduced from early issues are, however, forbidding: unbroken columns of print as far as the eye can see. The LRB demonstrated its intellectual seriousness by allowing contributors unparalleled wordage. (Cannily, the compilers have chosen to reprint only tantalising snippets of interesting items rather than whole pieces.)