NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW: 125 Years of Literary History

Launched in 1896, the New York Times Book Review has covered scores of classics at the outset of publication and in advance of later critical responses. When Anne of Green Gables came out in 1908 the reviewer found the character of Anne completely unconvincing. This collection takes us from Kipling and Shaw at the end of the 19th century to Sebold and Murakami in the 21st with never-before-heard anecdotes about famous writers, spirited letter exchanges and remarkable reportage and photography. In the 1920s, under the editor J. Donald Adams, reviews became more wide-ranging and opinionated, and longer thought-provoking articles began to appear on writers such as Willa Cather and Robert Frost. Agatha Christie's second novel, Murder on the Links, was enthusiastically reviewed with praise for the author's ingenuity, and Christie's famous disappearance in 1926 was covered in day to day detail. The Great Gatsby, Mrs Dalloway, Gone With the Wind, The Grapes of Wrath and Mein Kampf are some of the classics of the years up to WWII. Reviewed in 1950, The Story of Art by E. H. Gombrich proved to be one of the most popular books on art ever written, and in the same year Alice B. Toklas, the famed partner of Gertrude Stein, described the couple's Paris years, including their friendship with Hemingway. Flannery O'Connor and Simone de Beauvoir are reviewed positively, while W. H. Auden's 1954 review of Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring says no fiction of the past five years has given him greater joy. Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, however, later judged a science fiction classic, was condemned as "jerry-built", and Heller's Catch-22 fared little better. The Godfather, The Love Machine, Beloved, and Primary Colors take us into the 90s, and the authors Celeste Ng and Jacqueline Woodson into the 21st century. An introductory essay by Parul Sehgal discusses the Review's changing attitudes to women, Black writers, and LGTBQ writers, including Rebecca West's 1974 review of Jan Morris's memoir about her gender transition. Readers' letters formed an integral part of the journal from the beginning, with a particular focus on literary recommendations. 368pp, well over 100 reviews and articles, features, cuttings, appendices, photos in black and white and colour. An endlessly rewarding and colour image packed compendium, 22 x 26cm.
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