The Armchair Esquire [antikvár]

Introduction THE LITERARY SCENE, 1933-1958 The reader has only to glance at the table of contents of this anthology to see how many distinguished contributors Esquire has had in the twenty-five years of its existence. Here is rich fare, a strikingly diversified collection of stories and articles, many of which have, not previously appeared in book form. The selections are fresh and remarkably readable, and the volume makes a most satisfactory armchair companion. The volume also belongs to literary history. The autumn of 1933 seems, as one takes the first look backward, an inauspicious time for the introduction of a magazine such as Esquire aspired to be. Although Franklin D. Roosevelt had been in office for a few months, and had introduced some of the measures that enraged so many of the wealthy and encouraged millions of other Americans, the depression had continued to deepen. If the magazine had been started in 1923, it would have had six boom years in which to entertain and instruct a generation of young men with money in their pockets. A decade later its potential audience had shrunk and seemed likely to go on shrinking. In an autumn in which the word "revolution" was often heard, spoken now with horror and now with hope, the publication of Esquire seemed either a piece of unpardonable insolence or a gallant but futile gesture. However, we can now see that in one important way the young Esquire had the best luck a magazine can have: a supply of good writers. The 1920's had confirmed the reputations of a number of men who had begun writing before the First World War, among them Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson, Sinclair Lewis, H. L. Mencken. Moreover, the twenties themselves had suddenly and richly brought forth John Dos Passos, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Cummings, and Thomas Wolfe. Beginning their careers almost as Esquire began its career were John Steinbeck and James T. Farrell. With the exception of Faulkner, all the 9 i': } f I'