A DANGER TO THE MINDS OF YOUNG GIRLS

A daring editor changes literary history.

Journalist and critic Morgan, founder of the Chicago Review of Books, makes his book debut with an engaging biography of Margaret C. Anderson (1886-1973), founder and publisher of the influential journal the Little Review. Born into a wealthy family in Indianapolis, Anderson escaped to Chicago as soon as she could, eager for a wider cultural world. She was befriended by Clara Laughlin, who gave her a job reviewing books for her magazine, the Interior. Soon, a chance meeting opened up another opportunity: as an assistant to the editor of the well-regarded literary journal, the Dial. In 1913, by then part of a flourishing arts community in Chicago, she decided to launch her own journal. Working on a shoestring budget, Anderson made the rounds of publishers and bookshops to solicit ads. She also convinced the piano company Mason & Hamlin to give her a piano in exchange for free advertising—a deal that she repeated even after the journal moved from Chicago to New York. Once an aspiring pianist, Anderson always had to have her piano. The journal got a significant boost when Ezra Pound offered to become its foreign editor. He was looking, he wrote to Anderson, for an “official organ” where he, T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, and other avant-garde writers could appear. Backed by the cosmopolitan lawyer John Quinn, he could pay contributors. Anderson was enthusiastic, but publishing the first chapters of Joyce’s Ulysses proved both brave and reckless, at the cost of losing subscribers and leading to her trial for obscenity. Morgan recounts Anderson’s affairs with Jane Heap, actress and opera singer Georgette Leblanc, and Solita Solano, among others. Her reputation endures as “a politically radical lesbian” and champion of modernism.

A lively biography of a bold woman.