The Saturday Review of Literature

Articles from The Saturday Review of Literature

In Memorium, 1914 (Saturday Review of Literature, 1929)

The editors for the August 3, 1929 issue of The Saturday Review of Literature removed their collective caps in deep solemnity for the disasters that began that week just fifteen years earlier when the opening shots were fired that began the First World War.


It was a fitting tribute coming from a literary magazine in 1929, for that would be the year that introduced some of the finest World War I books to the reading public: Undertones of War (Blunden), The Path of Glory (Blake) and All Quiet on the Western Front (Remarque), which are all mentioned herein.

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T.E. Lawrence of Arabia (Saturday Review of Literature, 1930)

This is a 1930 review of of Gurney Slade’s fictionalized account of the World War One Arab revolt, In Lawrence’s Bodyguard. The book was intended as a novel for boys and is here reviewed anonymously by one who was simply credited as, A Friend of T.E. Lawrence. Gurney Slade (pen name for Stephen Bartlett) was libeled as a man of taste and sensibility and the novel was generally well liked.

‘The Arab business was a freak in my living; in ordinary times I’m plumb normal.’ Normal, yes; but only the normally strong arise to be normal after trial and error.

You might also like to read this 1933 article about T.E. Lawrence.

Click here to read about Lawrence’s posthumous memoir and the literary coup of 1935.

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All Quiet on the Western Front (Saturday Review of Literature, 1929)

Henry Seidel Canby (1878 – 1961) was one of the founding editors of The Saturday of Literature
and in this article he put pen to paper and presented his readers with a concise summation of what he liked to call the five phases of war literature. Canby sensed that since 1919 there had been five unique types of war books, all produced by veterans, and that Erich Maria Remarque’s (1898 – 1970) All Quiet on the Western Front was typical of the fifth variety that was appearing in 1929:

The balance hangs true in Remarque. Pacifism is a theory, militarism is a theory, war is a necessity – not in its causes, for who really hates the enemy! – but for this doomed generation it is a fact. War for these men is normal, which does not mean that they like it.


A 1930 article about the movie can be read herecan be read here.

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Anticipating the War with Japan (The Saturday Review, 1925)

The Great Pacific Warstyle=border:none
was one of the truly remarkable books to hit the shops in 1925; the problem was that this would not be recognized until at least 1944. Unlike the unfortunate writers charged with the task of reviewing the novel, the author, Hector C. Bywater (1884 – 1940), was something of a clairvoyant, and was able to spell out how the war between Japan and the United States would unfold; the contested islands and the American victory. He wrote that the war would commence with a Japanese surprise assault, he recognized the importance that naval aviation would play and he predicted the Kamikaze attacks. Some elements of the war he did not predict, such as Hiroshima, but in 1945, after the smoke had cleared and the bodies were buried, many were amazed to pick the book up and read how much he got right.

Anticipating the War with Japan (The Saturday Review, 1925) Read More »

Anticipating the War with Japan (The Saturday Review, 1925)

The Great Pacific Warstyle=border:none
was one of the truly remarkable books to hit the shops in 1925; the problem was that this would not be recognized until at least 1944. Unlike the unfortunate writers charged with the task of reviewing the novel, the author, Hector C. Bywater (1884 – 1940), was something of a clairvoyant, and was able to spell out how the war between Japan and the United States would unfold; the contested islands and the American victory. He wrote that the war would commence with a Japanese surprise assault, he recognized the importance that naval aviation would play and he predicted the Kamikaze attacks. Some elements of the war he did not predict, such as Hiroshima, but in 1945, after the smoke had cleared and the bodies were buried, many were amazed to pick the book up and read how much he got right.

Anticipating the War with Japan (The Saturday Review, 1925) Read More »

Anticipating the War with Japan (The Saturday Review, 1925)

The Great Pacific Warstyle=border:none
was one of the truly remarkable books to hit the shops in 1925; the problem was that this would not be recognized until at least 1944. Unlike the unfortunate writers charged with the task of reviewing the novel, the author, Hector C. Bywater (1884 – 1940), was something of a clairvoyant, and was able to spell out how the war between Japan and the United States would unfold; the contested islands and the American victory. He wrote that the war would commence with a Japanese surprise assault, he recognized the importance that naval aviation would play and he predicted the Kamikaze attacks. Some elements of the war he did not predict, such as Hiroshima, but in 1945, after the smoke had cleared and the bodies were buried, many were amazed to pick the book up and read how much he got right.

Anticipating the War with Japan (The Saturday Review, 1925) Read More »

Anticipating the War with Japan (The Saturday Review, 1925)

The Great Pacific Warstyle=border:none
was one of the truly remarkable books to hit the shops in 1925; the problem was that this would not be recognized until at least 1944. Unlike the unfortunate writers charged with the task of reviewing the novel, the author, Hector C. Bywater (1884 – 1940), was something of a clairvoyant, and was able to spell out how the war between Japan and the United States would unfold; the contested islands and the American victory. He wrote that the war would commence with a Japanese surprise assault, he recognized the importance that naval aviation would play and he predicted the Kamikaze attacks. Some elements of the war he did not predict, such as Hiroshima, but in 1945, after the smoke had cleared and the bodies were buried, many were amazed to pick the book up and read how much he got right.

Anticipating the War with Japan (The Saturday Review, 1925) Read More »

Anticipating the War with Japan (The Saturday Review, 1925)

The Great Pacific Warstyle=border:none
was one of the truly remarkable books to hit the shops in 1925; the problem was that this would not be recognized until at least 1944. Unlike the unfortunate writers charged with the task of reviewing the novel, the author, Hector C. Bywater (1884 – 1940), was something of a clairvoyant, and was able to spell out how the war between Japan and the United States would unfold; the contested islands and the American victory. He wrote that the war would commence with a Japanese surprise assault, he recognized the importance that naval aviation would play and he predicted the Kamikaze attacks. Some elements of the war he did not predict, such as Hiroshima, but in 1945, after the smoke had cleared and the bodies were buried, many were amazed to pick the book up and read how much he got right.

Anticipating the War with Japan (The Saturday Review, 1925) Read More »

Another Addition to Man’s Incomprehension of Woman… (The Saturday Review of Literature, 1932)

Attached is the 1932 review of Woman: Theme and Variations by Major A. Corbett-Smith:

There is no mystery about women, he announces…she is never quite sure of herself in comparison with other women; but she is well aware of her superiority to man…


Click here to read about feminine conversations overheard in the best New York nightclubs of 1937.

Another Addition to Man’s Incomprehension of Woman… (The Saturday Review of Literature, 1932) Read More »