"<i>The Dial</i> was one of the most important avant-garde magazines of the early twentieth century, and its impact, range (and limitations) were never more evident than in these letters from Ezra Pound to the magazine's two principals, Scofield Thayer and Sibley Watson. . . . a volume that no serious library will want to be without."--Ronald Bush, California Institute of Technology
". . . whatever we do, we <i>must in public </i>agree. Pound is public, most egregiously so."--Scofield Thayer to Sibley Watson, July 30, 1920
". . . do store this correspondence for publication after 1941."--Ezra Pound to Scofield Thayer, February 17, 1921
"dam sentence structure anyhow"--Ezra Pound to Scofield Thayer, February 19, 1921
"Yeats has just sent in a mss. which appears at first glance to be utter twaddle."--Ezra Pound to Scofield Thayer, February 19, 1921
The discovery in 1987 of previously unpublished letters between and among Ezra Pound and the owners and editors of <i>The Dial</i>, Scofield Thayer and Sibley Watson, has led to a major publishing event.
The Pound letters alone introduce students of modernism to fresh primary materials, written during the artistic and literary ferment of the early twenties while Pound was engrossed in promotional and acquisitions work for <i>The Dial</i> in England and on the continent. They make clear that practically all the foreign contributions published in <i>The Dial</i> during Pound's involvement were secured by Pound himself and that Pound can be seen to have established practically singlehandedly the distinctive international flavor for which <i>The Dial</i> quickly became known and respected. The letters also show Pound at his critical best in his running commentary on <i>The Dial</i> and stand as a coherent body of Pound's criticism of the literature of the time--American, English, and European.
The lively and more intimate letters of Thayer and Watson, revealing their contrasting temperaments and tastes, show them working out their relationship with Pound and with each other and planning the editorial course of the publication. As <i>The Dial</i> became the premier international magazine of the 1920s, Thayer and Watson, together with Pound, became leading players in the drama of modernism, helping to shape the world of art and literature.
Stored in a trunk in Worcester, Massachusetts (Thayer's home), the new Pound letters came to light only when preparations were under way for the threatened auction sale of Yale's Beinecke <i> Dial</i>collection. Together with the newly available letters of the Watson Archive, they make it possible, finally, to tell the story of Pound and <i>The Dial</i> from the inside through the words of the principal characters.
