Volume 40, Issue 4

Preface to the 40th Anniversary Issue

We have tried in this issue to represent some of the subjects and concerns that have animated MR for forty years, keeping it high among the handful of significant literary journals in the 20th century. From the beginning we have attempted to supply what Ralph Waldo Emerson called for in the first issue of his Massachusetts Quarterly Review in 1847: "the moral influence of the intellect.,, We can add to that, in the fashion of these times, our newest slogan, ''Diversity—from the start."

MR has always been receptive to and shaped by the great issues of our time: preeminently the African-American struggle for recognition and justice; honest Native American and other so-called minority and ethnic representation in the mosaic of American life; the exploration in memoir, document, art, verse and story of the Holocaust—the horror at the center of the past century; the great and liberating surge of feminism and the women's movement. All of these and more are touched upon in this issue—in the contributions on Sterling A. Brown and Robert Hayden; on Neruda by a leading Puerto Rican poet; a challenging essay on Twain's (and many mainstream cri tics') treatment of Native Americans; the recovered journal of a sensitive Berlin Jewish woman murdered at Auschwitz; and a charming, poignant play about Marilyn Monroe rehearsing Chekhov!

We have been lavishly receptive to the creative arts—fiction, poetry, drama—encouraging new talent, recognizing achieved ability by the well-known, receiving many awards. In this issue, we can point to Grace Paley, Marilyn Hacker, Joyce Carol Oates, Raymond Kennedy, Jean Valentine, E.M. Broner. For other honored contributors over the years, look at the partial list on our front cover. It would have been patently impossible to ask for contributions from all who made our previous 160 issues memorable. We decided, instead, to ask from among those who appeared in Volume I—1959-1960—and were still at work to offer us something new. The response was gratifying. We proudly offer the con tributions by Leo Marx, Paul Gagnon, David Clark, Carter Revard, Anne Halley, Joseph Langland and Raymond Kennedy as examples of "the moral influence of the intellect," at work then and now.

Finally, we are reproducing an art section by Leonard Baskin, to whom this issue is dedicated. His "Portraits of Artists'' is a tribute to the person, along with the late Sidney Kaplan, who more than anyone shaped the appearance and authority of the journal. Baskin designed us—typography, layout, etc.—and produced a series of extraordinary art sections that distinguished MR in the early years, and then continued to supply his own sections and suggestions throughout. Along with the work of succeeding art editors, Lisa Baskin, Oriole Farb, Jerome Liebling—whose exqui site photographs grace these pages and so many previous ones—MR has continued its tradition of pursuing truth and beauty. We hope to keep doing it for at least another forty years.

—J.C. for the editors

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