American Review 16 [antikvár]

eiors'liiitis ' V f 1 . . ' { 1 AMERICAN REVIEW IS a Continuation of New Amencan Review, which ran for fifteen issues. The title had to be changed for legal reasons in the course of moving to a new publisher, Bantam Books. So we have dropped the word "New" but have used the number "i6" to signify the continuity of the two publications and to avoid confusion later on with back issues and so forth. The one significant change, from our point of view, is the publisher. Bantam is commonly regarded as the most enterprising and resourceful of the paperback houses, and AR has already begun to benefit from this association. In general, it provides the best, as well as probably the last, chance we'll have to put the magazine on a solid footing. This is not to fault the support NAR received from its previous two publishers, New American Library and Simon and Schuster, which was as wholehearted as an editor could wish. It is simply to say that we're in a better position now to see and do what is needed. Obviously, a magazine that has had three publishers in five years has been leading a pretty shaky existence. On the other hand, that it has survived as long as it has—as paperback magazines go, it is practically venerable—indicates that the magazine has performed a valuable function and perhaps a necessary one. This can also be inferred from the kind of attention NAR received, which is the main reason it hasn't gone under: its reputation for being the best and most representative of the magazines devoted to new writing provides the one negotiable asset that has so far outweighed its liabilities. This prestige has been rather curious. It has not been conferred by the intellectual and literary journals, vll fvr.V'-^ ' ,1 (t •' (