SCRUTINY: A QUARTERLY REVIEW complete run, 76 issues (and) SCRUTINY: A RETROSPECTIVE

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1939. 1st Edition. Soft cover. Very Good. Complete run of SCRUTINY (1932 - 1953) 76 issues, in original wraps, plus SCRUTINY: A RETROSPECTIVE (1963) inscribed by it s founder and editor F.R. Leavis to James Smith, professor of English Literature, with Smith's typed manuscript of the essay that appeared in SCRUTINY in 1939 that Leavis discusses in RETROSPECTIVE. A complete run of the original issues of the influential and controversial Cambridge University quarterly founded and edited by English literature scholar and literary critic F. R, Leavis (1895 - 1978) of Cambridge's Downing College. Cambridge republished a complete run of the quarterly in 1963, when Leavis published his retrospective treatise, which was an affirmation of its academic relevance as much as it was a defense of his personal scholarly judgment that had become characterized by his literary peers as dogmatic. T.S. Eliot, editor of Criterion quarterly, objected to Leavis "attacks and innuendos about people" and "his intemperate views". This set was apparently owned by James Smith, who was a professor of English at Cambridge when Leavis published the retrospective. This copy of RETROSPECTIVE is inscribed by Leavis to Smith on the verso of the paper cover "With FRL's gratitude and best wishes to James Smith, a most highly valued contributor October 1963" In Leavis' 24 page treatise. he describes (pages 7-8) Smith as "one of the most highly valued of the inner group of collaborators" and discusses in exemplary terms Smith's 1939 criticism of a German author's critical biography on the work of French artist Mallarme. Laid into, folded once, in the March 1939 issue (Vol VII No 4) is the typed manuscript of Smith's essay, edited by him in pencil and signed by him on the last page. In 1963,Cambridge published in 20 hardcover volumes the complete run of SCRUTINY. In 2008 it reprinted the re-issue in paperback format. It remains in its list of publications described as follows: "Scrutiny was first issued quarterly from Cambridge between 1932 and 1953, the principal editor throughout being Dr Leavis. It is now recognized as a formative influence on English intellectual and cultural life worthy to rank with the great reviews of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This reissue is of the 1963 combined set, including a final volume containing an important Retrospect by Dr Leavis and a substantial analytical index. Scrutiny offers an almost complete critical history of English literature from Chaucer to the mid twentieth century. Medieval literature, Shakespeare, and the seventeenth-century poets, Pope, Dryden, Johnson. the great romantics, the Victorians, and nearly all the important modern writers are seriously examined. Many of the articles have become classics, and resulted in revisions of previously accepted views. An important feature of Scrutiny, still of great interest, is the book review section, where many of the important books of the time, and some of the pretentious ones too, were reviewed as they appeared. Books on almost every important humane topic were treated, giving the reader a fascinating insight into the intellectual life of the time." The issues in this set are in generally very good or better condition, with covers slightly soiled, some flaking or incidental loss to paper over spines, most apparently unread. The first issue - Vol 1 No 1 - is missing its rear cover and paper over spine, but front cover is extant and firmly attached.