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New Statesman
Periodical founded in 1913
Other names
New Statesman and Nation (from 1931)
Location(s)
Kingsway
London
WC2B 5BB
United Kingdom 10 Great Turnstile
High Holborn
London
WC1V 7JU
United Kingdom
About
The New Statesman was founded over a series of gatherings hosted by Fabianists Beatrice and Sidney Webb, whose aim was to disseminate socialist and collectivist ideas among the middle classes. Bernard Shaw, among others, donated money to fund the launch of the magazine. The tone of the magazine in its formative years is described on its website as ‘didactic’ and ‘no-nonsense’. Some two years after its launch, its circulation was second only to that of the Spectator among sixpenny weeklies.
As Christopher Hitchens writes in his introduction to Lines of Dissent, ‘embedded in the Fabian idea was an impression of British greatness’ – the logical conclusion of which was an imperialist stance (Howe, pp. 6–7). It was Kingsley Martin, who became editor in the early 1930s, who turned the paper largely away from this stance. Martin also oversaw the takeover in 1931 of the Nation and Athenaeum, a magazine that had published some of Britain’s most renowned writers of the early twentieth century, and of the Weekend Review in 1934.
There were articles and reviews of books on the political situation in India throughout the four decades of the magazine. In the 1930s and especially the 1940s, increasing numbers of books (including fiction) by South Asians were reviewed, and one or two South Asians began to contribute reviews or articles themselves.
Editors: Clifford Sharp (1913–30), Kingsley Martin (1931–60).
Contributors: C. F. Andrews, Clive Bell, H. Belloc, H. N. Brailsford, Marcus Cunliffe, Emil Davis, Havelock Ellis, Lionel Fielden, Bernard Fonseca, Roger Fry, David Garnett, Frank Hauser, Desmond Hawkins, Syud Hossain, C. E. M. Joad, Fredoon Kabraji, Desmond MacCarthy, Thomas Sturge Moore, R. G. Pradan, V. S. Pritchett, Peter Quennell, Lajpat Rai, John Richardson, Paul Robeson, Shapurji Saklatvala, Ikbal Ali Shah, George Bernard Shaw, Desmond Shawe-Taylor, Khushwant Singh, M. J. Tambimuttu, Jinnadasa Vijaya-Tunga, Beatrice Webb, Sidney Webb, Leonard Woolf, Beryl de Zoete.
Howe, Stephen (ed.) Lines of Dissent: Writing from the New Statesman, 1913–1988 (London: Verso, 1988)
Hyam, Edward, The New Statesman: The History of the First Fifty Years, 1913–1963 (London: Longmans, 1963)
See: http://www.newstatesman.com
New Statesman, Special Collections, University of Sussex
This is the most successful effort hitherto made by West to meet East in the sphere of dance. Sakuntala is a ballet on the theme of Kalidasa’s famous dream, and is performed chiefly by Europeans, in an Indian dance-idiom. The idiom sometimes proves beyond their physical capacities, especially with regard to head and neck movements and facial expression, just as certain sounds in a foreign languages are almost impossible to acquire…Retna Mohini, a Javanese dancer who many will remember as Ram Gopal’s principal partner, introduces, of course, a very different standard of perfection, but her beautiful dances form part of a court entertainment, so do not clash too violently with the style of the Europeans. The same may be said of Rekha Menon, who, though not so fine or experienced a dancer as Retna Mohini, is a charming and authentic Indian dancer.
Beryl de Zoete, ‘An Indian Ballet’, review of Sakuntala ballet at the Embassy Theatre, New Statesman and Nation (6 April 1946), p. 245
Image credit
© Remaking Britain: South Asian Connections and Networks, 1930s – present
