The Times Literary Supplement
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The Times Literary Supplement (or TLS, on the front page from 1969) is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.
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History
The TLS first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to the The Times, but became a separate publication in 1914. Many distinguished writers have been contributors, including T. S. Eliot, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf, but reviews were normally anonymous until 1974, during which year signed reviews were gradually introduced under the editorship of John Gross.
This aroused great controversy at the time. “Anonymity had once been appropriate when it was a general rule at other publications, but it had ceased to be so,” John Gross said. “In addition I personally felt that reviewers ought to take responsibility for their opinions.”
Martin Amis was a member of the editorial staff early in his career. Philip Larkin's poem Aubade, effectively his final poetic work, was first published in the Christmas-week issue of the TLS in 1977. While it has long been regarded as one of the world's pre-eminent critical publications, its history is not without gaffes. For instance, the publication missed James Joyce entirely.
The TLS cooperates closely with the Times; its online version is hosted on the Times website, and its editorial offices are based in Times House, Pennington Street, London. The current editor is Peter Stothard, a former editor of the Times itself. He succeeded Ferdinand Mount in 2003.
In recent decades, The TLS has included essays, review and poems by Italo Calvino, Patricia Highsmith, Milan Kundera, Philip Larkin, Mario Vargas Llosa, Joseph Brodsky, Gore Vidal, Orhan Pamuk, Geoffrey Hill, Seamus Heaney, among others.
Many writers have described the publication as indispensable. For example, prize-winning Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa said: “I have been reading the TLS since I learned English 40 years ago. It is the most serious, authoritative, witty, diverse and stimulating cultural publication in all the five languages I speak.”
The TLS in literature
The Times Literary Supplement has appeared in works of fiction. One of the most backhanded such mentions appears in the English translation of Samuel Beckett's novel Molloy (1953), in which Molloy relates that:
... in winter, under my greatcoat, I wrapped myself in swathes of newspaper, and did not shed them until the earth awoke, for good, in April. The Times Literary Supplement was admirably adapted to this purpose, of a neverfailing toughness and impermeability. Even farts made no impression on it.
Another example was in George Orwell's Keep the Aspidistra Flying, in which his collection of poetry was reviewed by the Times Lit. Supp..
Editors
- James Thursfield 1902
- Bruce Richmond 1902
- D. L. Murray (David Leslie Murray) 1938
- Stanley Morison 1945
- Alan Pryce-Jones 1948
- Arthur Crook 1959
- John Gross 1974
- Jeremy Treglown 1981
- Ferdinand Mount 1991
- Peter Stothard 2003
See also
