Neither Progressive Nor Reactionary. Reassessing The Cultural Politics of The New Age (Little On GK)

Neither Progressive nor Reactionary: Reassessing the Cultural Politics of The New Age
Author(s): Lee Garver

Source: The Journal of Modern Periodical Studies, Vol. 2, No. 1 (2011), pp. 86-115
Published by: Penn State University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/jmodeperistud.2.1.0086
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neither progressive nor reactionary: reassessing the

cultural politics of the new age
Lee Garver
The New Age, particularly just before and in the early part of the rst
world war, was the left-wing paper, which everybody who was anybody read.
Margaret Cole, 1959 letter to The New Statesman
It was, on the whole, not a Socialist but a reactionary paper . . . So reactionary,
that most of its contributors were Medievalistsor of that Christian Secularisti, such as Shaw. They lived in the past, to which they were frightened
back by threatening chaos. They wished to put the clock back, as Chesterton
once said, but they had not the Chesterton courage to confess it.
Oscar Levy, from his unpublished Autobiography
Few modernist-era periodicals have been the source of more misunderstanding and conicting commentary than A. R. Orages The New Age
(19071922). While it is widely recognized that this weekly magazine
played an important role in the development of British modernism and the
history of radical politics in the early twentieth century, there has been and
remains to this day little agreement as to its exact ideological or cultural
identity. Consider, for example, the two statements that open this essay,
both by individuals who were for many years closely associated with the
publication. For Margaret Cole, a longtime member of the Fabian Society and the feminist wife of political theorist G. D. H. Cole, whose book
National Guilds: An Inquiry into the Wage System and the Way Out (1914)
is the best known statement of the guild socialist political philosophy, The
journal of modern periodical studies, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2011
Copyright 2011 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA
JMPS 2.1_04_Garver.indd 86
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New Age was the preeminent left-wing magazine of its era. For Oscar Levy,
the ercely antidemocratic and proudly reactionary editor of the rst complete English-language edition of Friedrich Nietzsches Collected Works
(1909 1913), The New Age was an altogether different sort of periodical. Far
from being progressive, left-leaning, or socialist, as Cole claimed, it was in
his view a conservative publication, one that looked nostalgically to the past
for a sense of political stability and cultural order absent from Great Britain
during the turbulent rst decades of the twentieth century.
Although it might reasonably be supposed that scholars today would
have reached some consensus as to which of these accounts was more accurate or at the very least offered some credible way of reconciling their
discrepancieslittle has changed in the intervening fty years. While
the Modernist Journals Project has dramatically and invaluably improved
access to The New Age in the past decade through its online edition of the
magazine, prompting a renascence of scholarly interest in this heretofore
understudied periodical, most critics still defend one or the other of the
above interpretations. Robert Scholes and Ann Ardis, for example, tend to
emphasize, as Cole did, the magazines progressive characteristics. In his
General Introduction to The New Age on the Modernist Journals Project website, Scholes repeatedly characterizes the periodical as socialist and
speaks eloquently of Orages concern for social progress, social justice,
and improving the human condition. For him, the magazine, despite
being a place where anarchism and authoritarianism rubbed shoulders,
was for most of its existence rmly on the left, and it is primarily for this
reason that Scholes laments the magazines eventual embrace, during its
last years of publication, of the economic theories of Major C. H. Douglas, whose views on social credit, he claims, had a decisive and disastrous
effect on Ezra Poundand, to some extent, Orage himself.1 Ardis similarly
stresses the leftist character of the publication. Although she recognizes
that Orage made room for all kinds of writing, including what she regards
as the elitist contributions of Pound, T. E. Hulme, and other now canonical high modernists, she insists that The New Age was principally committed to promoting guild socialism and examining contemporary literature
and art from left-of-center political perspectives throughout most of its
history. Indeed, despite being richly aware that the magazine addressed a
socially diverse readership and featured opposing points of view in its
pages, Ardis believes that a spirit of radical democracy and working-class
educationalism governed The New Age, leading a majority of contributors
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neither progressive nor reactionary
to promote political and cultural values that were hostile both to the British
class system and to modernist literary experimentation more generally.2
In contrast, Tom Villis, Dan Stone, and Charles Ferrall tend to argue,
like Levy, that The New Age was primarily a reactionary publication. Villis,
for instance, laments that scholars have frequently viewed the magazine
through a socialist prism. Although he does not deny that The New Age
included numerous contributors nominally from the political left, he characterizes the periodical less as a place of liberal socialist reform and more
as a site of cultural rebellion against parliamentary democracy, a rebellion
that he believes absorbed and reected the thinking of radical right movements elsewhere in Europe and anticipated future forms of [reactionary]
political organization.3 Villis also strongly challenges the idea that The
New Age was egalitarian, pointing to the magazines hostility to the Labor
Party and its interest in Nietzschean and aristocratic value systems as evidence that its sympathies were fundamentally elitist in character. Stone and
Ferrall are even more adamant in branding The New Age with a reactionary label. As someone who argues that the publication provided a friendly
home for a number of proto-fascist English Nietzscheans concerned with
eugenics and race, Stone is understandably dismissive of the idea that the
magazine was progressive. He not only denies that The New Age was a leftist publication, referring to it as a supposedly socialist paper, but he also
suggests that Orage was broadly supportive of the aims of his most deeply
conservative contributors.4 Ferrall no less keenly links the magazine to the
radical right. He contends that in the years before World War I The New
Age was the main forum in England for writers and intellectuals hostile
to liberalism, progress, and democracy. In addition, he rejects the idea
that there was anything progressive about guild socialism, suggesting that
this political philosophy, like the syndicalist theories of French Marxist
George Sorel, sought to harness the energy of the militant workers movement and turn it against a more than century-long tradition of democratic
and emancipatory politics.5
Even Wallace Martin, the grand old man of New Age studies and someone with little axe to grind in these matters, nds himself caught within the
terms of these opposing claims. In his groundbreaking 1967 study of the
magazine, The New Age under Orage: Chapters in English Cultural History,
Martin does his best to offer an alternative frame of reference, emphasizing
that The New Age provided, in editor A. R. Orages own words, a neutral
ground where the adherents of various literary and political movements
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89
could meet and discuss their differences. However, in examining the vital
role debate played in the magazine, Martin nds it difcult to analyze these
intellectual exchanges in terms that do not replicate or, at the very least,
reinforce the kind of left-right, progressive-reactionary binaries that often
limit scholarship on the periodical. In his historical accounts of debate in
The New Age, reactionary movements either supersede more progressive
ones in signicance (e.g., reactionary individualist modernism supplants
progressive sociological realism) or progressive and reactionary forces join
together in awkward alliance (e.g., guild socialism, which Martin simplistically argues combined a conservative theory of value with a progressive
political philosophy).6
While it is a testament to the continued relevance of The New Age that
it still matters to academics whether its achievements belong more to
the political left or right, or for that matter to the modernist avant-garde
or its opponents, it strikes me that it no longer makes sense to sort and
label the magazines contents in this manner. Although such ideological
and aesthetic classication can bring useful attention to particular schools
of thought in the publication and even, as in the case of Martin, unusual
literary-political alliances, it cannot explain the political and cultural logic
that governed the editorial practices of or the discursive interactions
withinthe periodical, especially during the years 190714 when The New
Age was at the height of its inuence and popularity and included within
its pages nearly every major dissident writer of the period. As an examination of the events leading to the magazines founding reveals, The New Age
emerged at a moment when radical politics in Great Britain was enjoying a
burst of new energy and enthusiasm but had few institutional outlets that
could contain or utilize this fervor. Beginning as a publication that sought
to capture in print an aesthetic-minded and unruly strain of radical politics that could not be peacefully housed within the Fabian Society, The
New Age quickly evolved, under the direction of its editor A. R. Orage, into
a periodical that attempted to give voice to the entire spectrum of radical
thought and cultural activity that characterized the period. Consequently,
it makes no sense to privilege one group of contributors over another or
to attempt to shoehorn the magazines amazingly rich and varied contents
into a single ideological or aesthetic frame, even one so closely tied to the
publication as guild socialism. As the rst intellectual periodical to open
its pages to a new generation of radical writers, its goals were always different from those of more narrowly formulated magazines that subsequently
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competed with The New Age for readers and contributors. Rather than
promote the interests of a single group or constituency, the publication
attempted to unite in dialogue an emergent and loosely confederated set
of cultural radicals who might otherwise have remained splintered along
narrow sectarian lines. Eschewing identication with socialism, conservatism, or any other political ideology, the magazine solicited a wide variety
of competing opinion, encouraged lively exchanges among dissident intellectuals and artists from both the political left and the right, and most
important, for those interested in the history of modern culture, fostered
the development of a eld of radical political-cultural discussion that not
only transcended conventional ideological categorization but also embodied, in its eagerness to publish any new voice that challenged reigning
orthodoxies, most of the political and aesthetic tensions that shaped the
prewar period in Great Britain.
To understand why a magazine of this sort emerged when it did, it
is necessary to examine briey the 1906 British national election. Few
moments in British electoral history raised more hopes and generated
more enthusiasm among radicals than this watershed political event, and
the sense of shared mission and collective achievement it inspired among
the founders of The New Age would indelibly shape the editorial policies of
the magazine for years to come. During the last two decades of the nineteenth century, a number of radical political and artistic movements arose
to challenge the ruling orthodoxies of the day. The Fabian Society and the
Independent Labor Party (ILP) began to spread the gospel of socialism,
unions of unskilled workers started to ex their muscles, and feminists
and new women made bold new calls for legal rights and social freedoms.
It was also during this period that the aesthetic and decadent movements
took up the battle cry of art for arts sake, theosophists preached the philosophy of a universal brotherhood of humanity, and the arts and crafts
movement called for a return to hand production and a rejection of soulless
industrialism.7 However, as much as these movements signaled a growing discontent with the status quo and stirred anxiety among conservative
members of society who feared that they represented the rst signs of a
dreaded national decline, they had relatively little impact on parliamentary
politics. Since the 1886 election, when the Liberal Party split over the issue
of Irish home rule, the Conservative Party had dominated Parliament. With
the exception of a brief three-year stretch from 1892 to 1895, during which
a Liberal minority took control of the House of Commons by allying itself
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91
with the Irish Nationalist Party, the Conservatives maintained power for
nearly twenty years. Radical socialists were almost entirely excluded from
the political process. Before the 1906 election, only a handful of socialist
candidates had ever held ofce, and the Labor Representation Committee,
formed with such high hopes in 1900 by trade union leaders and members
of the ILP and the Fabian Society, failed to make any meaningful change
in this state of affairs. Further adding to a sense of powerlessness among
radicals at the beginning of the twentieth century were two legal decisions
that seemed to cast public disapproval on their very existence. The 1895
conviction of Oscar Wilde for gross indecency cast a chill on advanced
artists and gay rights advocates, and the 1902 Taff Vale judgment, in which
a British court ordered striking railway workers to pay 23,000 in damages
to the Taff Vale Railway Company, made strikes illegal and threatened to
bankrupt trade unions.8
This shared sense of powerlessness and ineffectuality changed dramatically during the rst two months of 1906. Whereas before the election
the Conservatives had held a 402 to 183 advantage in seats, this seemingly
insurmountable lead was completely reversed. In a landslide victory for
Henry Campbell-Bannermans Liberal Party, the Liberals won 399 seats
while the Conservatives won a mere 156. This crippling loss of 246 seats
for the once-dominant Tories transformed the political landscape and, for
many radicals, seemed to herald a new era and promise a welcome change
of priorities in Parliament. No longer beholden to the Irish Nationalists,
the Liberals now were free to pursue long-planned reforms, including a
number of progressive tax and social welfare measures that would stir considerable controversy both inside and outside The New Age during the next
several years. If this stunning reversal in fortune was not enough to give
radicals hope that a new era had dawned, the even more dramatic success
of the Labor Representation Committee, which would soon after the election become known simply as the Labor Party, encouraged even greater
optimism. In 1900, the LRC had won a mere two seats in fteen contested
districts. In the 1906 election, it won an amazing twenty-nine seats out of
fty contested districts, an astonishing level of success for an association
still less than a decade old and a thrilling triumph for those Fabians and
other political radicals who played a critical role in these Labor victories.9
For many members of the Fabian Society, which would soon play a
central role in the founding of The New Age, these were exhilarating times.
Never had their work seemed more relevant, and never had the society
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seemed better poised to make a difference in how the nation was governed.10
However, this was by no means a happy or peaceful period for the organization, and it is important to remember as much when examining the
events that shaped the early political-cultural outlook of The New Age. Too
often when literary and cultural historians look back on this moment, they
assume that the society was little more than an extension of the personalities of its two signature members, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, and underestimate both the political diversity of its membership and the extent to
which the organization reected broader trends and tensions in British
society.11 Since its establishment in 1884, the Fabian Society had welcomed
a wide variety of different personalities into its fold, including playwright
and wit George Bernard Shaw, sexologist Havelock Ellis, theosophist Annie
Besant, decorative artist Walter Crane, novelist H. G. Wells, social prophet
and gay rights crusader Edward Carpenter, and even for a time Womens
Social and Political Union founder Emmeline Pankhurst. In addition, the
organization had displayed a remarkable willingness to work with individuals of almost every possible political persuasion in pursuit of its policy of
permeation, including Liberal Imperialist Richard Haldane, father of the
Territorial Army; ILP chairman and LRC founder Keir Hardie; Tory politician and colonial administrator Alfred Milner; philosopher and pacist
Bertrand Russell; and journalist Leopold Maxse, editor of the conservative
National Review. This eclecticism, opportunism, and calculated belief that
it would prove more benecial in the long run to have their ideas permeate
or gain inuence among all the main political parties rather than become
the foundation of a separate revolutionary political organization made the
Fabian Society extraordinarily appealing to socialists and reformers who
were reluctant to give up their intellectual freedom in the interest of party
discipline or who wished to believe that their ideas had the ears of the most
powerfully placed men and women in the nation.12 Not surprisingly, these
same characteristics also made the organization a natural place of interest
for a younger, more humbly born, and more impatient generation of radical intellectuals who had few other places to turn for institutional support
in the months immediately following the 1906 election and who quickly
clashed with older members over the best way to take advantage of the
recent election results.
In the two years preceding the election, Fabian Society membership
had expanded after several years of decline.13 Most of these new members
joined because they thought the society was the most likely instrument for
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93
a socialist transformation of Great Britain,14 not because they necessarily

identied with the organizations gradualist reform policies or its rational
and at times narrowly utilitarian research and educational publications,
best exemplied by George Bernard Shaws brilliantly edited Fabian Essays
in Socialism (1889), Sidney and Beatrice Webbs landmark History of Trade
Unionism (1894), and more than a hundred academically rigorous and variously authored Fabian tracts.15 Consequently, when the election appeared to
signify a dramatic shift in public opinion, many new members sought to
take the society in a new direction, even if doing so placed them in conict
with the Fabian Old GangShaw, the Webbs, Fabian secretary Edward
Pease, Tory Democrat Hubert Bland, and other longtime members. H. G.
Wells, who had joined the society only three years earlier, was the most vocal
spokesperson for this new, militant wing of the society and quickly took the
lead in pressing for change. In a speech given to the Fabian Society on
February 9, 1906, the day after nal election results had been posted and a
year before the societys membership would triple from approximately 800
members to more than 2,400, Wells described the society as an extraordinarily inadequate and feeble organization in the midst of a world that
teems with undeveloped possibilities of support and help for the cause we
profess to further. Criticizing its exclusive social-club atmosphere and
faith in behind-the-scenes inuencing of governmental policy, he urged the
organization to become more popular and democratic, to increase revenue
and staff, and to carry on a vigorous socialistic propaganda among all the
more educated and intelligent sections of our population.16 Later, after it
became clear that his speech had not been favorably received by the Fabian
Executive Committee, Wells organized a reform group committed to enacting these changes and openly campaigned to overthrow his rivals on the
committee.
The importance of this speech and the events that followed cannot be
overemphasized, especially for anyone interested in the early history of The
New Age. Although the rebellion Wells ignited did not in the end succeed
in transforming the Fabian Society or toppling the Fabian Executive Committee, it nevertheless exposed cracks and divisions in the organization,
and among radical socialists more generally, which Orage would exploit
to his advantage both before and after he became editor of the magazine.
Like most lower-middle-class recruits to the society, Wells resented the
upper-middle-class biases and prejudices of many old guard members, a
great number of whom came from privileged backgrounds and regarded
09/06/11 4:01 AM
94
themselves as the natural leaders of any movement to bring political and

economic reform to Great Britain. Commenting in his speech on the need
for the Fabian Society to reach out to journalists, lower-ranking professionals and clergy, and above all the whole generous multitude of the educated
young, of which, he went on to claim, the poor doctor and the Board
School teacher may perhaps be taken as the best types, Wells spoke on
behalf of a growing number of socialists who believed the society needed
to abandon many of its establishment ties and give individuals from more
modest backgrounds a larger role to play in the everyday governance of the
organization. Like most recent recruits to the Fabian Society, Wells also
disliked the policy of permeation, which he believed too often served as an
excuse for inaction and moral timidity. Accusing the society of doing little
more than playing at politico-sociological research and promoting among
members the delusional belief that the world may be maneuvered into
socialism without knowing it, he spoke on behalf of many newly emboldened radicals when he called for an open political campaign of socialists
as socialists. Finally, like a number of younger members whose interest
in socialism was primarily literary, philosophical, or ethical in inspiration,
Wells abhorred what he believed was the small minded and spiritually
impoverished approach to reform practiced by the Webbs and other leading gures in the organization. Claiming that previous generations of radicals in Great Britain had achieved their aims only when meeting under
Pentecostal tongues of re, he suggested, as much through example
as exhortation, that the Fabian Society should widen its scope and offer
bolder and more imaginative critiques of traditional religious values and
social customs that he believed undergirded a corrupt capitalist system.17
In October 1906, he gave a speech before the organization titled Socialism
and the Middle Class in which he attackedto the shock of many and the
delight of othersthe institution of marriage and called for the development of a set of policies that would make women nancially independent
of their husbands. At almost the same time, he also published a novel, In
the Days of the Comet (1906), which further divided the society through its
praise of free love and its suggestion that socialism might be best achieved
not through slow, incremental reform but rather through a suddenin
this instance comet-inducedintellectual and spiritual awakening among
Britains citizens.18
When scholars of modern periodical literature express surprise at
the Fabian Socialist foundations of The New Age, wondering how such a
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95
notoriously freewheeling and at times bitterly antagonistic magazine could

ever have enjoyed the support of the Webbs or other key gures in the
organization, it is imperative to realize that the Fabian Society was undergoing a major crisis of identity in 1906 7 and was not the same organization it would become only a few years later when Wells and many of
his allies quietly departed in disgust and frustration. It is also vital to recognize that New Age editor A. R. Orage, who briey joined the Fabian Society
during this period of turmoil, was by no means as unusual or as unorthodox a gure as he is sometimes portrayed. If one is to believe Wallace
Martin, Orage arrived in London in 1906 with ideas regarding Socialism,
the labor movement, and the methods and standards of industrial production that had little in common with the prevailing conceptions of these
subjects that [he] encountered in the Fabian Society in London.19 However,
nothing could be less true. Orage was very much a product of his age, and
his upbringing and intellectual interests were largely the same as those of
other young men and women who were swelling the ranks of the Fabian
Society during this period.
This fact becomes clear if one examines Orages childhood and early
adulthood. Like most young recruits to the Fabian Society, Orage was of
humble and provincial origin. Born in 1873 in North Yorkshire and raised
by his widowed mother in Fenstanton, a small village along the road from
Cambridge to Huntingdon, the future editor of The New Age grew up
under impoverished circumstances and only barely managed to escape
a life of working-class or agricultural drudgery. Without the assistance of
a local Nonconformist landowner, who recognized his talents and generously agreed to support his education past the age of twelve, he would
have likely remained as downtrodden and unknown as the tragic protagonist of Thomas Hardys Jude the Obscure (1895). After earning a teaching degree in 1893 from Culham College, one of the many new schools
founded at this time to meet the needs of the Elementary Education Act
of 1870, Orage moved to the northern industrial city of Leeds. There he
took up work as a board school teacher, a job that would have required him
to teach as many as seventy working-class children at a time and often
served, due to its unimaginative and brutally repetitive curriculum, as a
breeding ground for political radicals who yearned for a richer and more
intellectually rewarding existence.20 It is during this period of his life that
Orage, like so many other young men and women in his circumstances,
began to absorb the work of the great radical writers of the late nineteenth
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century and started to play an active role in the political and cultural life
of his new industrial home. Inspired by his reading of Edward Carpenter,
William Morris, Walt Whitman, Annie Besant, Madame Blavatsky, and
George Bernard Shaw, he assisted in the founding of the Leeds branch
of the ILP, the rst important workers party in Great Britain; contributed
literary articles to ILP chairman Keir Hardies Labour Leader; played a leading role in the creation of the Leeds Theosophical Society Lodge; and in
1903 assisted his friends Holbrook Jackson and A. J. Penty in establishing
the Leeds Arts Club, an organization that promoted the discussion of art,
radical politics, religion, and philosophy. This last undertaking proved an
enormous success, and in a very short time Orage had not only become
a celebrated local lecturer on such topics as Nietzsche, Ibsen, and socialism all enthusiasms he notably shared with Shaw but he had also
begun to promote and celebrate the writing of Wells, whose works of speculative sociological prophecy, most notably Anticipations (1901) and Mankind in the Making (1903), were winning widespread admiration among
socialists, intellectuals, and popular readers of this era.21
As this brief biography makes evident, it would have been perfectly
natural for Orage to want to join the Fabian Society when he took the daring step of abandoning his teaching career and moving to London in the
closing months of 1905. Not only did the society count among its members
the two literary intellectuals Orage most admired in Great Britain, but it
was also an organization that, in the wake of the 1906 British national
election and Wellss Faults of the Fabians speech, seemed eager to recruit
just such a person as himself. As a lower-middle-class former board school
teacher, Orage was the very model of the educated young person Wells
claimed to represent. He also shared Wellss impatience with permeation
as well as many of the elder mans imaginative and philosophical passions,
especially a Nietzschean desire to seek the transvaluation of all values;
and not long after he arrived in London the young provincial lecturer began
to seize upon opportunities to expand the scope of the society and make it
more representative of the interests of recent recruits.
The most important of these efforts occurred in January 1907, when
Orage and his friend Holbrook Jackson prevailed upon Shaw to sponsor the
creation of the Fabian Arts Group, a more ambitious, London-based version of the Leeds Arts Club. This critical event not only set the stage for the
eventual founding of The New Age, but it also reveals that Orage was, from
the very outset of his arrival in London, far less invested in partisan political
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97
wrangling than he was in building community and promoting intellectual

dialogue and debate. Instead of taking obvious sides in the conicts dividing the Fabian Society, he and Jackson presented themselves as reformers who could be relied upon to work amicably with both Wells and the
Executive Committee, an approach that was intended to win them both a
measure of power within the organization and a critical voice in any conversations about redening the societys mission. The strategy is most clearly
on display in statements Orage and Jackson made at the January meeting
where the Fabian Arts Group was launched. Speaking to members just a
month after Wells had narrowly failed, in the face of stinging opposition
from Shaw, to pass an amendment that would have summarily deposed his
rivals on the Executive Committee, Jackson moved, according to a report in
the January 1907 issue of Fabian News, that the group be formed by members and associates of the Fabian Society with the object of interpreting the
relationship of art and philosophy to Socialism. Orage then
seconded the resolution, and in pointing out the importance of art
and philosophy to the propaganda of Socialism . . . said that the arguments both for and against Socialism were becoming more and more
philosophic and less related to the immediate application of Socialistic measures. The Society had made up its mind on these last, and
it had now not only to make up its mind but to help form a Socialist
opinion of the former.22
By defending the Fabian Arts Group on the grounds that it would aid in
the propaganda of socialism, especially the formation of a broadly agreed
upon socialist philosophy that could be used to shape and win public support, Orage and Jackson clearly and deliberately linked their venture with
Wells, who continued in his addresses before the society to insist on the
need for more aggressive public outreach and education programs. However, by having Shaw preside over the founding of their group and emphasizing the need for greater discussion of the arts and philosophy, Orage
and Jackson made it equally clear that the inuential playwright and life
force philosopher had a no less vital role to play in reforming the Fabian
Society. Indeed, the two Leeds friends even extended an olive branch to
the Webbs, who were notorious for their indifference to the arts. Although
Orage claimed that the arguments for and against socialism were becoming
more and more philosophic and less related to the immediate application
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of Socialistic measuresa clear swipe at the priority the Webbs placed on

gradual legislative reformhe nevertheless conceded that the society was
in agreement as to the desirability of these measures and needed only to
develop a better philosophical understanding of their importance in order
to persuade the British public to adopt them en masse.
When the opportunity arose a few months later for Orage and Jackson
to purchase The New Age, a left-leaning and formerly socialist magazine
that had fallen on hard times, the two Leeds friends were in the enviable
position of being able to count on the support of almost every important
member of the Fabian Society. For Wells and other critics of the Old Gang,
the prospect of having Orage and Jackson, two of the brightest young stars
of the Fabian Society, jointly edit An Independent Socialist Review, as the
magazine was at rst subtitled, could not have been more exciting. Since
arriving in London a little more than a year earlier, Orage and Jackson had
gone to great lengths to ingratiate themselves with Wells and his supporters. When Orage published his rst book, Friedrich Nietzsche: The Dionysian
Spirit of the Age (1906), he sent a copy to the novelist, and he later contacted
Wells to solicit his backing for the creation of an ill-fated Guild Restoration
League, which Orage and his Leeds Arts Club friend A. J. Penty believed
might appeal to disaffected members of the Fabian Society.23 Jackson was
even more direct in his appeals to the Fabian rebel. In February 1907, he,
like Wells, ran as a reformer for a seat on the Fabian Executive Committee and wrote to the celebrated author offering his personal support in
furthering that revolution in spirit of the Fabian brought about by yourself.24 Although Jackson did not win a place on the Executive Committee
and watched with disappointment as Wells placed fourth in the election,
he and Orage continued quietly to promote Wellsian reform, most notably
by inviting the controversial novelist to speak to the Fabian Arts Group. In
return for these kindnesses and expressions of solidarity, Wells was among
the strongest and most enthusiastic defenders of The New Age. In his congratulatory remarks to Orage and Jackson in the rst issue of the magazine,
published on May 2, 1907, he argued that the periodical would give new life
to his stalled reform program. Your enterprise will, I am sure, he commented,
be of the utmost help and value to the new movement in the Fabian
Society; it will do with the freedom and vigour of irresponsibility
what it would have been almost impossible under existing conditions
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to do ofciallysupply a co-ordinating and educational link for the

new members who are now coming in, and give fresh scope to the
many young and vigorous minds in the Society who are now seeking
(and needing) the discipline of written expression.25
As these comments make evident, Wells looked to The New Age to supply
a co-ordinating and educational link for those new members who craved
creative outlet for their talents, and Orage and Jackson made it clear in
an editorial in the same issue that they would make every effort to have
The New Age serve just such a role. Referencing Wells directly by name,
they claimed to seek the services of all men of good intent and promised
to maintain the right of intelligence to challenge and revise any existing
[socialist] formulation.26
For the Webbs, Shaw, and other old guard members, the appeal of The
New Age was equally strong, albeit for very different reasons. Rather than
seeking the establishment of a magazine that would facilitate the unofcial growth and transformation of the Fabian Society, they sought instead
the creation of an independent periodical that would exist apart from the
society and would not interfere with its everyday governance. The obvious model here was the London School of Economics, which was founded
in 1895 after the Fabian Society had been granted a 20,000 bequest by
a wealthy donor. Instead of using this enormous bequest to expand the
scanty resources of the society, the Webbs and other Executive Committee members decided to start a college that would promote independent
economic research and train the next generation of political and business
elites. Such an approach had the admirable quality in their eyes of broadening the inuence of the society without diluting or undermining its core
mission, and it is plain that these same individuals believed that The New
Age had the potential to serve a similar function a little more than a decade
later. It is for this reason that Shaw was willing to donate 500 of his personal savings to the purchase of the magazine if Orage and Jackson could
nd another donor willing to donate the other half of its cost. By giving
the Fabian Society a stake but not a controlling interest in The New Age, he
hoped to provide members with a valuable new forum for promoting socialism but not saddle the society with responsibility for running or nancially
propping up the magazine if it did not prove successful. For the same reason, Sidney Webb and Edward Pease, the two highest ranking members of
the Fabian Society, were eager, to the surprise of later commentators and
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literary historians, to throw their support behind what might have appeared
to some contemporary observers as a heretical and seditious enterprise.
Although Orage and Jackson may not have hid their disdain for what they
believed was the narrow research and education agenda of the Fabian
Society, speaking approvingly in their opening editorial of the gradual
emergence from the tangle of sociological theory of a distinctly Socialist
conception of Society, they nevertheless made it clear that their magazine
would serve as a critical friendly exponent of those practical steps necessary to create such a society. Such language was sufcient to convince
Webb and Pease that The New Age would be a valuable partner in furthering
causes near and dear to the leaders of the organization. In the rst issue of
the magazine, Webb asserted, The project cannot fail to be of use,27 and
Pease was equally generous in his greeting to Orage and Jackson:
I cordially welcome your New Age. We wanted a paper to express continuously the typical Fabian view of affairs, and yet the difculties of
an ofcial organ, controlled by the Society, seemed to me insuperable.
Ofcial Fabianism welcomes independent criticism more cordially
than the invariable approval which their own organ would have to
express. Our members, I am condent, will help you to make the new
venture a success.28
Wisely recognizing that the typical Fabian view on any matter was almost
invariably more divided than the organizations ofcial policy, Pease made
the most of The New Ages independence and looked optimistically to a
future wherein Fabians of every variety would permeate the publication
and offer sympathetic criticisms of ofcial Fabianism.
In addition to winning the backing of most, if not all, key constituencies
within the Fabian Society, Orage and Jackson enjoyed, almost by default,
the support of many other individuals in the broader socialist community.
Because The New Age was at the time of its founding the only socialist
intellectual weekly in Great Britain, most left-leaning radicals greeted the
revival of the magazine with extraordinary excitement and optimism. In
the rst issue of the newly reconstituted periodical, a diverse cast of radical luminaries, ranging from Russian anarchist Prince Peter Kropotkin to
Christian Social Union founder and canon of St. Pauls Cathedral Henry
Scott Holland, enthusiastically celebrated the rebirth of the periodical. Each
offered their sincerest wishes for success to Orage and Jackson, and most
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spoke hopefully about the benets such a publication would bring to what
John Edwards, president of the Liverpool Fabian Society, referred to as that
growing section of the people who are looking with longing eyes for the
dawn of a brighter day.29 Even those who envied the swiftness with which
the two young men from the provinces had acquired and assumed editorship of The New Age were grateful for their success. Childrens author, poet,
and political activist Edith Nesbit, wife of Executive Committee member
Hubert Bland, no doubt said what many felt when she congratulated Orage
and Jackson on their good fortune:
Almost every Socialist of my acquaintance has, for the last few
months, been seeking to establish a Socialist papersome Socialist
paper. Now you have got in ahead of the rest of us, and you have my
warmest congratulations, as well as my best wishes. I did want to run
a Socialist paper myself, but I am sure that you will do it much better
than I should have done it, and if I can do anything to help in any way
I hope youll let me.30
The key point to note in this statement one that had a direct bearing on
the editorial policy of The New Age for years to comeis that Orage and
Jackson got in ahead of the rest of the competition. As Nesbit discloses,
there had been for many months a growing wish among socialists of all
stripes for some kind of publication in which activists and intellectuals
could discuss how to reform Great Britain. Though she might have preferred to edit this new paper herself, she was not about to offer any opposition now that she found the eld already occupied. Instead, like many
other ambitious radicals of the period who were eager to capitalize on the
triumphs of the 1906 election, she would graciously do what she could to
ensure that The New Age served the needs of this emerging counterpublic
sphere.
Because initially Orage and Jackson enjoyed such broad support they
immediately gained an eclectic and diverse readership that would be
the envy of later editors and journalists. However, rather than using this
advantage to advance a particular ideological or cultural agenda, as many
commentators have suggested, the two young editors attempted to give
dynamic and representative voice in The New Age to the extraordinary
variety of opinion that characterized contemporary socialism. Recognizing that they had a unique opportunity to unite under a single banner
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almost all lower-middle- to upper-middle-class socialist intellectuals, Orage

and Jackson took various steps to make sure that their edgling periodical
would be attractive to the widest possible number of contributors and readers. Among the most signicant of these measures was a strict policy of
inclusiveness. While it might have been tempting for the young editors
to give preference to Wells and other Fabian rebels, Orage and Jackson
scrupulously avoided doing so. During The New Ages rst six months of
publication, Shaw received at least as much attention as Wells, and contributors to the magazine were unusually wide ranging in both background
and interests. In addition to publishing work by such longtime Fabians
as Nesbit, Tolstoy translator Aylmer Maude, historian G. R. S. Taylor, and
Wellsian reformer and drama critic L. Haden Guest, the magazine featured
the writings of feminist icon and modern actress Florence Farr, doctor and
social reformer M. D. Eder, suffragette and eventual Womens Freedom
League founder Teresa Billington-Greig, and nineteenth-century social
prophet Edward Carpenter. What is more, the contents of The New Age during this period were remarkably free of obvious favoritism. Jackson, for
example, shared responsibility for writing The Outlook, a set of reections on recent political events that opened each issue, with two very different individuals: Fabian rebrand and critic of permeation Cecil Chesterton,
G. K. Chestertons Tory socialist younger brother, and Webb loyalist Clifford
Sharp, future editor of The New Statesman, the magazine the Fabian Society founded in 1913 after The New Age ceased to be a reliable friend to the
organization.31 Even advertisements for the New Age Press, an afliated
publishing arm of the magazine, were careful to give equal representation
to different factions within the Fabian Society. In addition to listing for sale
the classic Shaw-edited volume of essays Fabian Essays in Socialism (1889),
these advertisements announced the availability of new editions of Shaws
Fabianism and the Empire (1900) and The Commonsense of Municipal
Trading (1904), as well as several additional books that offered more imaginative and daring meditation on the need for social reform: Wellss Socialism and the Family (1906) and This Misery of Boots (1907), Orages Friedrich
Nietzsche: The Dionysian Spirit of the Age (1906), and Edward Carpenters
Prisons, Police, and Punishment (1905).32
Perhaps the most important measure Orage and Jackson took to
ensure that The New Age retained the widest possible readership was to
solicit and make space for opposing opinion, a practice that would come
to dene the magazine during the prewar period. In the rst issue of
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the magazine, a feature titled First Public Conference on Mr. Wells

Samurai essentially an abridged transcript of a talk Wells gave before
the Fabian Arts Group three weeks earlier included not only Wellss
remarks to the group but also lengthy critical responses from Shaw and
Beatrice Webb, thereby establishing a model of engagement that would be
repeated again and again during the next six months.33 When a few weeks
later, for example, a contributor wrote an article praising the virtues of
patriotism,34 an uncommon and unpopular sentiment among socialists
of the period, this article was followed the very next week by a piece offering a sharp rebuttal.35 Similarly, when Teresa Billington-Greig presented
a series of articles criticizing socialists for not giving proper attention
to womens suffrage,36 space was made in the always lively Correspondence section of the magazine for a variety of dissenting responses.37
Even the most deeply held opinions of the editors were not exempt from
strong refutation. The rst multi-article series that Orage and Jackson
published was provided by their old friend A. J. Penty, who had recently
quit the Fabian Society when he learned that the top prize in an architectural design contest for the Fabian-afliated London School of Economics had supposedly been awarded on the grounds that it cost the least to
build per square foot of usable space. Titled The Restoration of Beauty
to Life, Pentys series was an unapologetic defense of the arts and crafts
movement, in particular the idea that beauty must play a primary role in
any solution to the economic problems that plagued Great Britain, and it
pulled no punches in criticizing Fabians and other radicals for abandoning craft ideals.38 Yet this series, which addressed an issue Orage cared
about passionately, was not allowed to be presented without criticism. In
later issues, dramatist Ashley Dukes would nd fault with what he called
the present vogue for neo-medievalism,39 and Clifford Sharp would
denigrate as reactionary and practically absurd a similarly conceived
Orage article, Politics for Craftsmen, which appeared in the June 1907
issue of the British intellectual monthly The Contemporary Review.40
However, as crucial as such exchanges were in establishing the neutrality and independence of The New Age, they served an even more signicant
and dramatic purposehighlighting ideological differences and stirring
controversy. Many critics over the years have noted that The New Age was
an important site of debate, critical exchange, and dialogue,41 but few, if
any, have examined just how ruthlessly and methodically Orage and, for
a brief period, Jackson exposed cracks and divisions among contributors
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and readers. Martin speaks movingly, for example, of Orages editorial

tolerance, his commitment to intellectual freedom, and his willingness
to publish anyone who fullled two basic editorial requirements: that
they write sincerely, and write well. He contends that it was Orages hope
that by stimulating and co-ordinating the abilities of the contributors, he
would be able to nd solutions to all of the outstanding political, economic,
social, and cultural problems of his time.42 But the truth of the matter is
that Orages encouragement of intellectual argument was rarely, if ever, so
idealistic or high-minded. It was primarily intended to generate heat and
sparks, and it served far more to sharpen ideological distinctions between
contributors than to promote their resolution.
One can conrm as much by examining key debates and exchanges
from the magazines rst months of publication. Among the most contentious issues confronting Fabians and other socialists in spring 1907 was
the question of imperial governance. From April 15 through May 14, the
British government hosted a Colonial Conference in London that brought
together leaders from all the self-governing colonies and dominions in
the British Empire, including, most notably, Louis Botha, former Boer
commander and then prime minister of the newly autonomous Transvaal colony in South Africa. Coinciding with the appearance of the rst
issue of The New Age, the conference was a perfect opportunity for Orage
and Jackson to reopen debates that had once bitterly divided the Fabian
Society during the Second Boer War (1899 1902),43 and they wasted no
time in picking at old wounds. On the opening page of their rst issue,
the two editors published a short unsigned piece in The Outlook section of their magazine that called for the formation of an ofcial federation between Great Britain and its colonies. Declaring the barren negation
of the old Radical Little-Englandism . . . impossible, a statement sure to
upset many readers of The New Age, the piece argued, much like Shaw in
his still controversial Fabianism and Empire, that the British colonies had
more to gain from federation than from nationhood: How helpless would
a host of small and romantic Nationalities prove when confronted with
all the powers and principalities of cosmopolitan nance! Only a Socialist
Federationa Socialist Empire could face them without inching.44 In
the very next issue, Sharp praised a book by Labor Party leader J. Ramsay
MacDonald that seemed to offer Labor Party support for a similar kind of
imperial federation.45 However, rather than take steps to make The New
Age a strong public advocate for such a policy or attempt to win over its
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opponents, Orage and Jackson did everything in their power to fan the
ames of opposition. In the May 16, 1907, issue of The New Age, they
published a letter by M. D. Eder strongly denying that imperial federation
could ever evolve into international socialism,46 and in the following issue,
in an obvious bid to provoke debate, the two editors gave over their opinion
column to H. V. Storey, who used the space to denounce capitalism and
imperialism, praise native Bengali economic boycotts, and call attention to
abuses of power by John Morley, secretary of state for India.47 Over the next
several months, a host of other contributors offered their opinions on such
imperial matters as the employment of black Africans to replace striking
white miners in South Africa,48 the use of ogging as a punishment in
Nairobi,49 and British misconduct and native rioting in Denshawai, Egypt,50
thereby further inciting argument between socialist supporters of federation and radicals who regarded empire as an unjust and irredeemably
predatory tool of international capitalism.
Another important split among socialists that Orage and Jackson
sought to lay bare and make the subject of debate concerned whether the
Fabian Society should enter the world of party politicsthat is, form an
Independent Socialist Party to compete with the Liberal Party, the Labor
Party, and the Marxist Social Democratic Federation for the hearts and minds
of progressive voters. Since this question touched directly on the subject of
Fabian reform and reorganization, a matter that had only recently caused
great strife within the society, opinion was quite heated on the subject, and
Orage and Jackson quickly acted to make sure that The New Age became the
primary public forum to discuss this controversial issue. In the June 13,
1907, issue of their magazine, they wrote an editorial that argued against
the creation of a socialist party on the grounds that it would imperil free
discussion.51 In the same issue, they also published a piece by H. G. Wells
in which this once ferocious critic of permeation expressed considerable
skepticism about socialists getting involved in party politics. Claiming that
socialism was a complex, systematised idea and purpose, not a matter of
interests, Wells declared, one leaves the clear ground of creative design
for a jungle of expediency directly one comes to vote winning.52 Having
thus angered any number of allies within the magazine who would have
reasonably expected Orage, Jackson, and Wells to have been ag bearers for
the creation of a socialist party, the two young editors just as swiftly turned
the table on themselves. In a stroke of editorial genius, they next asked
Cecil Chesterton, one of the most vocal advocates for forming a socialist
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party, to speak on the subject, and he immediately touched off a frenzy of

additional debate by admonishing Wells for his apparent apostasy. Singling
out a statement from the previous issue of the magazine in which Wells
had claimed that the socialist movement was larger than any single political party, Chesterton lashed out at Wells with unexpected ferocity. What is
clear, he argued about the statement, is that Mr. H. G. Wells, the revolutionary, the enemy of compromise, the leader of the Reform Movement,
the unsparing critic of the Old Gang, has gone over bag and baggage to the
permeators, to the men calling themselves Socialists, who favour backstairs intervention between Conservative and Liberal, to those who are
even willing to be called Liberal or Conservative for electoral purposes.53
In the weeks and months that followed, numerous other commentators
weighed in on the matter, including S. G. Hobson, who offered additional
criticisms of Wells,54 and Clifford Sharp, who unapologetically defended the
old Fabian policy of permeation.55 At no point was a consensus allowed to
take shape or a winner crowned, and as with the equally exciting exchanges
about colonial policy, readers were made more aware, rather than less, of
the ideological divisions and diversity of opinion that made the Fabian Society such a spirited and interesting organization at this time.
When after eight months of publishing Orage took over sole editorship
of The New Age, his new magazine had not only earned a well-deserved
reputation for neutrality and independence, but it had also rapidly become
mandatory reading for progressive radicals, who turned to The New Age
each week to see what issues mattered most to leading gures on the radical left. But Orage was not prepared to rest on his laurels, and it is at this
critical stage in the history of The New Age that the magazine begins to
assume the character it would exhibit for the next seven years. Having perceived how it was possible for a magazine to embody the very spirit of a
political movement in all its breadth and diversityin this instance the
various different-minded individuals who made up the Fabian Societyhe
set his sights on a much bigger prize: representing all those radical forces,
societal and individual, that sought to break with the status quo and imagine new possibilities of social organization.
To this end, Orage made several key changes to The New Age that
set the template for how the magazine would be structured for years to
come. The rst and most obvious change, introduced on October 31, 1907,
shortly before Jackson departed, could be found on the magazines front
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page. Where previously the periodical had been subtitled An Independent

Socialist Review of Politics, Literature, and Art, it was now simply subtitled
A Weekly Review of Politics, Literature, and Art. This change announced
that The New Age aspired to be much more than a magazine for socialists. Indeed, by declaring itself a weekly review, The New Age proclaimed
that it invited comparison and competition with such inuential and wellestablished periodicals as the liberal Fortnightly Review and its conservative
counterpart The Spectator. The change manifested itself most clearly in The
New Ages coverage of the arts. While The New Age devoted considerable
space in its rst eight months to discussing the work of Shaw and Wells
and debating the merits of the arts and crafts movement, it provided relatively little analysis of artists or cultural trends unrelated to socialism. With
Jacksons departure, Orage made sure that the magazine not only featured
more general book, theater, gallery, and music reviews but also more essays
and columns focused on advanced literary and artistic developments. During the rst year Orage acted as sole editor, for example, feminist actress
Florence Farr contributed the series Ibsens Women,56 Ceylonese art historian Ananda K. Coomaraswamy the piece Art of the East and the West,57
social prophet and gay rights activist Edward Carpenter a set of articles
titled Music-Drama in the Future,58 and Dr. Angelo S. Rappoport a pair of
essays titled Ibsen, Nietzsche, and Kierkegaard.59 Most important, author
Arnold Bennett, a champion of Jamesian craft and a thoughtful critic of
the publishing industry, began contributing a much admired weekly literary column, Books and Persons, under the pseudonym Jacob Tonson,
and future imagist poet F. S. Flint, then almost entirely unknown, began
contributing a regular poetry feature titled Recent Verse. Taken together,
these series and features ensured that The New Age kept readers up to date
on most of the exciting new developments in the arts in this period, thereby
greatly increasing the magazines appeal to forward-looking intellectuals
and aesthetes who might not have ordinarily chosen to purchase or read a
socialist magazine. The New Age even began to publish a respectable range
of original poetry and ction, including work by Arnold Bennett, F. S. Flint,
Edith Nesbit, John Galsworthy, Irish poet James H. Cousins, Scottish poet
and Nietzschean John Davidson, and occultist Aleister Crowley.
The most signicant step Orage took to make his publication of interest to a larger and more diverse readership, however, was to court outspoken and controversial new contributors, often individuals who were
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not socialists but who shared either his dislike of modern capitalism or
his skepticism of conventional thought and morality. Beginning with the
December 7, 1907, issue of The New Age, Orage simultaneously brought
two such gures into his fold, forever changing the character of his magazine. The rst was Catholic controversialist and author Hilaire Belloc, an
independent-minded Liberal MP who had already made a considerable
name for himself as a poet, travel writer, essayist, and popular historian.
The second was German-Jewish expatriate Oscar Levy, the rst of many
reactionary Nietzscheans to write for The New Age and an outspoken critic
of both democracy and Christianity. Despite their enormous differences,
both men, it could be fairly said, loathed socialism and immediately produced a seismic shift in the kind of discussion found in the magazine.
Bellocs contribution, a piece titled Thoughts on Modern Thought,
attacked collectivist state socialism as well as evolutionary science, two of
the main pillars of modern progressive thinking, and was clearly written
with the purpose of provoking and antagonizing the magazines largely leftist readership. Although Belloc conceded that modern capitalism, landlordism, and plutocracy were blights on Great Britain, particularly insofar as
they stripped laborers of their autonomy, dignity, and independence, he
denied vehemently that state socialism would do anything to address these
problems. Indeed, in a statement obviously meant to raise the hackles of
socialist readers, he argued that state socialism would, every bit as effectively as capitalism, strip laborers of their liberty and alienate them from
their labor. The divorce of personality from production, he declared, is
inhuman, and of itself just as inhuman when it is effected by collectivism with a charitable object as when it is effected by the present industrial
system with an immoral and selsh object.60 Later in the essay, Belloc
further provoked many readers when he criticized Orage for claiming in
an earlier issue of the magazine that humanity was still unfolding.61 Dismissing such an idea as just so much evolutionary trash and emphasizing the medieval Catholic foundations of his own views on human nature,
he asserted, We are quite obviously of one kind with the same moral and
physical nature and change as the humanity of which historical record
exists, and to play with that truth is to play with all that is sensitive and all
that is sacred about us.62
Not surprisingly, the responses to Bellocs essay were swift and furious, and in the very next issue, Orage cannily set aside an entire page in
the middle of The New Age to showcase a sampling of the many angry
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letters that poured in, thereby expanding the range of issues addressed
in his magazine. One correspondent argued that Bellocs dismissal of
evolutionary science and thought rested not on a grasp of reality, that is,
an empirically veriable realm of shared experience, but rather upon an
understanding of the painted environments of . . . religions.63 Another
contended that one of Bellocs guiding principles (the sentiment of property is normal and necessary to a citizen)64 was an extremely poor basis
for an attack on socialism, claiming that such a belief would make a very
tting device to inscribe upon the entrance gate of any Socialist Paradise.
Finally, one correspondent even questioned the supposedly Catholic nature
of Bellocs thinking, suggesting that he preached a form of Catholicism
largely of his own imagining and would do well to rethink his assumption
that the Catholic Church was necessarily opposed to socialism. As should
be evident by these responses, Belloc did more than simply stir controversy;
he changed the actual terms of debate in the magazine. In less than a week,
he succeeded in getting contributors to examine anew the philosophical
and scientic bases of evolutionary theory, consider more carefully the role
of personal property in socialism, and evaluate afresh whether the Catholic
Church was a friend or foe to progressives.
Levys contribution offered a comparably provocative defense of Italian
Nietzschean Leo Gioacchino Seras On the Tracks of Life: The Immorality of
Morality (1907),65 a book whose English translation he would oversee during the next year. Comparing Sera to a troop of Russian Cossacks who have
just ransacked a French nunnery and raped its helpless female inmates,
Levy praised the Italian author for having similarly violated European public opinion by pitilessly revealing the immoral root of all art and the will
to domination that underlies all genius. In addition, he applauded Sera
for being one of the leaders of a new literary school that sought to reveal
unpleasant political truths likely to be considered offensive to the progressive readership of The New Age:
He shocks the Aristocracy by telling them that the Aristocracy is no
more, because they have forgotten what is noble. He shocks the Democracy by reproaching them for their disbelief in good blood, brave
forefathers, inherited wealth, and the use of leisure.66
Although Levys deliberately outrageous rape analogy and ostentatious
praise of noble blood and inherited privilege did not excite nearly the same
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kind of controversy as Bellocs article, it was in its own way just as important in reshaping the character of The New Age. First, it announced that
Orage was willing to promote forms of Nietzschean critique that went
well beyond the kind of humorous and reformist assaults on conventional
morality popularized by Shaw in such plays as The Devils Disciple (1897)
and Man and Superman (1903). Second, Levys anti-Catholic celebration
of unconventionality provided an important counterbalance to Bellocs
staunchly Christian critique of socialism, insulating Orage from charges of
religious favoritism and preserving The New Ages reputation for impartiality and freedom of discussion. Third, and most important, Levys arrival
made it far more likely that prospective contributors from outside the ranks
of socialism would nd The New Age an attractive home. Indeed, I believe
it is unlikely that such politically complex high modernists as T. E. Hulme
and Ezra Pound would have become regular contributors to the magazine if
Orage had not made it unambiguously plain that he was willing to publish
work that skewered any number of progressive sacred cows.
As I hope is now clear, it simply does not make sense to read The New
Age with the expectation that it can in any meaningful sense be categorized
as left-leaning or right-leaning, progressive or reactionary. Although Orage
sometimes leaned more to one direction than the other, he did not allow his
personal views or those of his closest confederates to color the contents of
the magazine. From the moment he rst became editor, he not only solicited opinion directly opposed to his own, but he also made it his mission to
publish the widest spectrum of radical political-cultural thought possible. In
the very same issue, for example, in which Belloc and Levy rst appeared,
Orage published the sixth installment in a nine-part series by George
Bernard Shaw titled Driving Capital Out of the Country, a set of socialist
economic reections that would later be collected into book form and advertised for sale in future issues of The New Age.67 He also published a similarly
progressive piece in a fourteen-part series by Edwin Pugh titled Charles
Dickens as a Socialist68 and a short anonymously authored column titled
Magazines of the Month, which reviewed the contents of an assortment
of rival publications.69 As the inclusion of Shaw and Pugh conrms, Orage
did not abandon old friends and contributors as he expanded the contents
of The New Age. Shaw, for instance, would continue to contribute regularly
to the magazine for another four years, and socialism would remain a critical point of reference for the periodical throughout its existence. Indeed,
in a brilliant coup for the magazine, Orage succeeded only a few months
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later in getting Shaw to enter into direct dialogue with Belloc. The piece in
question, a comic masterpiece of Shavian criticism in which Shaw famously
coined the term the Chesterbelloc, served as a rallying point for progressive contributors and conrms that Orages purpose in bringing Belloc and
Levy into the fold of The New Age was not to announce an abrupt shift in editorial perspective but rather to broaden the kind of radical political-cultural
discussion that had dened the magazine from the beginning.70
The same holds true for the column Magazines of the Month. When
Orage could not nd someone to speak on a particular issue or express a
point of view important to some portion of the British radical community,
he often summarized, or encouraged others to summarize, what was being
said elsewhere. In the case of the column that appeared alongside the rst
New Agepublished work of Belloc and Levy, this feature helped make
readers aware of the existence and contents of a new Desmond McCarthy
edited literary-scientic magazine The New Quarterly (19071910); offered
a rst review of The American Journal of Eugenics, the successor publication
to Moses Harmans anarcho-feminist periodical Lucifer the Light-Bearer
(18831907); recommended that readers interested in colonial matters
inspect the eminently practical and informative Colonial Ofce Journal (19071913); called attention to the 1908 Rationalist Press Association
Annual, which included an article by Clarion newspaper editor and socialist Robert Blatchford titled How I Became an Agnostic; and praised the
October 1907 issue of the Ruskin Quarterly for providing thoughtful debate
on matters of coeducation and elementary school reform for the poor.71 As
the contents of this column reveal, The New Age did not make it a policy
to privilege one ideological perspective over another. Whether it was the
views of such establishment gures as physicist and Nobel Prize winner
Lord Rayleigh, philosopher Bertrand Russell, and artist and satirist Max
Beerbohm, all featured prominently in The New Quarterly; the radical anarchist opinions of The American Journal of Eugenics; or the comparatively
conservative and pro-imperial reections of the Colonial Ofce Journal,
Orage placed few, if any, limits on The New Ages press coverage and clearly
encouraged his readers and contributors to enlarge and complicate, rather
than narrow and restrict, their political-cultural horizons.
As a result of these editorial decisions and the critical head start Orage
achieved over his radical journalistic peers, The New Age played a different
political-cultural role than other British radical magazines during the years
190714. In contrast to The Eye-Witness (191114), founded by Belloc to
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promote his distributist economic ideas; The Freewoman (1911), The New
Freewoman (191113), and The Egoist (191419), founded, at least in part,
by Dora Marsden to showcase her unique brand of individualist feminism
and philosophy; and The New Statesman (1913present), founded by Sidney
and Beatrice Webb to educate readers about collectivist state socialism and
provide a platform for Webbian social reform, The New Age did not advocate a specic political program or favor a particular philosophy or set of
cultural values. Instead, it deliberately and systematically sought to unite
in conversation and debate a heterogeneous set of cultural radicals who
would collectively revolutionize political thought and literary production
during these vital prewar years. In this respect, The New Age served the crucial but overlooked function of creating a eld of radical political-cultural
discussion where readers could note and perceive ideological and artistic
developments that were larger and more important than the work of any
single individual, group, or organization. In addition, it facilitated a form of
intellectual dialogue that not only ignored what we too often regard as the
hard and fast boundaries between the political left and right, populism and
elitism, literary experimentalism and traditionalism, but also aided migration across these divides. For these reasons, I would like to encourage students and scholars of The New Age to begin to examine this magazine in a
new manner. I believe that, rather than assuming one can selectively read
the work of a small group of contributors and draw conclusions about the
overall ideological outlook of the periodicalan approach that has so far
only led scholars to make wildly divergent claims about the magazines cultural politicsa far more productive approach is to treat The New Age, as we
increasingly treat modernism more generally, as a locus of unresolved tension and conict. Although The Eye-Witness, The Egoist, The New Statesman,
and host of other competing publications would eventually lure away both
readers and contributors, thereby undermining the original editorial mission of the magazine and leading The New Age to become a less exciting and
varied publication in the years after 1914, there is no periodical that gives
better insight into the many interconnected social and cultural upheavals
of the years 1907 through 1914 than The New Age. Its lively debates and
exchanges brought together many of the principal gures who fought for
and resisted political and cultural change during this era. If we explore
their fractious interactions with an eye toward better understanding what
was at stake in these upheavals, we can learn a great deal we do not already
know about the rise of modernism and the making of the modern world.
09/06/11 4:01 AM
lee garver
113
notes
1. Robert Scholes and the staff of the Modernist Journals Project, General Introduction to
The New Age, 19071922, Modernist Journals Project, http://dl.lib.brown.edu/mjp/render.
php?id=mjp.2005.00.001&view=mjp_object (accessed July 2, 2010).
2. Ann Ardis, Modernism and Cultural Conict, 18801922 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002), 145, 164, and Democracy and Modernism: The New Age under
Orage (19071922), in The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines, vol.
1, Britain and Ireland, 18801955, ed. Peter Brooker and Andrew Thacker (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2010), 210, 213, 215.
3. Tom Villis, Reaction and the Avant-Garde: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy in Early
Twentieth-Century Britain (New York: Tauris, 2006), 1.
4. Stone, Breeding Superman, 14.
5. Charles Ferrall, Modernist Writing and Reactionary Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 13, 19.
6. Wallace Martin, The New Age under Orage: Chapters in English Cultural History (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1967), 4, 198.
7. For additional information about these developments, see Alison Hennegan, Personalities and Principles: Aspects of Literature and Life in Fin-de-Sicle England, in Fin-de-Sicle
and Its Legacy, ed. Mikuls Teich and Roy Porter, 170 215 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1990); and Sally Ledger and Scott McCracken, eds., Cultural Politics at the Fin-de-Sicle
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
8. For additional information about this period of British history, see Norman McCord and
Bill Purdue, British History, 18151914, in the Short Oxford History of the Modern World series
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 406 32.
9. Ibid., 422 32.
10. See, for example, Robert C. K. Ensor, England, 18701914, Oxford History of England,
original series (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936). Ensor was a young, impressionable Fabian
in 1906 who would go on to become an important contributor to the rst few volumes of
The New Age. In reecting back in 1936 on the 1906 election, Ensor writes, Radicalism and
Socialism alike, released from the suppression of two decades, were radiant with sudden
hopes of a new heaven and a new earth (391).
11. See, for example, Stanley Pierson, British Socialists: The Journey from Fantasy to Politics
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979), 196 97; Martin, The New Age under Orage,
20 22, 33; and Ardis, Modernism and Cultural Conict, 18801922, 15758. For a useful corrective to this viewpoint, see Ian Britain, Fabianism and Culture: A Study in British Socialism and
the Arts c. 18841918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 121.
12. See Samuel Hynes, The Edwardian Turn of Mind (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1968), 98 99. See also Britain, Fabianism and Culture, 79.
13. For a detailed charting of the changes of membership, see A. M. McBriar, Fabian Socialism and English Politics, 18841918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962), 166.
14. See Margaret Cole, The Story of Fabian Socialism (London: Mercury Books, 1961), 116.
See also Hynes, The Edwardian Turn of Mind, 90 92.
15. For additional information on these remarkable research and educational publications,
see McBriar, Fabian Socialism and English Politics, 18841918, 29 59.
16. H. G. Wells, The Faults of the Fabian, reprinted in Hynes, The Edwardian Turn of
Mind, 391, 397, 392 93.
17. Ibid., 393, 395, 400, 401, 396.
18. For additional information on Wellss interactions with the Fabian Society during this
period, see Cole, The Story of Fabian Socialism, 11724; and Hynes, The Edwardian Turn of
Mind, 112 19.
19. Martin, The New Age under Orage, 20.
20. John Fletcher Crews Harrison, Late Victorian Britain, 18751901 (London: Routledge,
1991), 201. See also John Carswell, Lives and Letters: A. R. Orage, Katherine Manseld, Beatrice Hastings, John Middleton Murray, S. S. Koteliansky, 19061957 (New York: New Directions,
1978), 16.
21. For additional information about Orages early life, see Carswell, Lives and Letters, 1527; and
Tom Steele, Alfred Orage and the Leeds Arts Club, 18931923 (Worcester: Scolar Press, 1990), 2587.
09/06/11 4:01 AM
114
22. Quoted in Martin, The New Age under Orage, 21.

23. See Carswell, Lives and Letters, 30 31.
24. Holbrook Jackson quoted in Britain, Fabianism and Culture, 10.
25. Letters from the Front, The New Age 1 (May 2, 1907): 3. The New Age is henceforth
abbreviated NA.
26. The Future of the New Age, NA 1 (May 2, 1907): 8.
27. Letters from the Front, 3.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid.
31. See Martin, The New Age under Orage, 26.
32. See, for example, the New Age Press advertisement titled Books for socialists . . . and
Students of Modern Ideas, NA 1 (May 2, 1907): 15.
33. First Public Conference on Mr. H. G. Wells Samurai, NA 1 (May 2, 1907): 9.
34. R. M., Socialism and Nationalism, NA 1 (May 30, 1907): 74.
35. Clifford Sharp, Socialism and Patriotism, NA 1 (June 6, 1907): 86.
36. See, for example, Teresa Billington-Greig, Womens Right to Vote. Short-sighted Socialists, NA 1 (May 23, 1907): 54, and For Sex-Equality, NA 1 (May 30, 1907): 73.
37. See, for example, H. H., W. M. Green, and L. M. Engall in Correspondence, NA 1 (May
30, 1907): 79.
38. A. J. Penty, The Restoration of Beauty to Life, NA 1 (May 2, 1907): 5; NA 1 (May 9,
1907): 21; NA 1 (May 16, 1907): 37.
39. Ashley Dukes, Pomp and Pageantry, NA 1 (July 4, 1907): 150.
40. Clifford Sharp, Back to the Middle Ages, NA 1 (June 20, 1907): 117.
41. See in particular Martin, The New Age under Orage, 32 60; Scholes, General Introduction to The New Age, 19071922; and Ann Ardis, The Dialogics of Modernism(s) in The
New Age, Modernism/Modernity 14 (Sept. 2007): 40734.
42. Martin, The New Age under Orage, 38, 39, 40.
43. For more information on these debates, see McBriar, Fabian Socialism and English
Politics, 18841918, 119 30; and Cole, The Story of Fabian Socialism, 95102.
44. The Outlook. Planning an Empire, NA 1 (May 2, 1907): 1.
45. Clifford Sharp, review of J. Ramsay MacDonalds Labour and the Empire, NA 1 (May 9,
1907): 23.
46. Imperial Federation, NA 1 (May 16, 1907): 47.
47. India and the Imperialists, NA 1 (May 23, 1907): 56.
48. The Outlook. South African Prospects, NA 1 (June 6, 1907): 81.
49. The Nairobi Flogging Case, NA 1 (June 20, 1907): 116.
50. To Empire via Denshawai, NA 1 (July 4, 1907): 147 48.
51. A Socialist Party, NA 1 (June 13, 1907): 104.
52. H. G. Wells, The Socialist Movement and Socialist Parties, NA 1 (June 13, 1907): 105.
53. Cecil Chesterton, The Need for a Socialist Party, NA 1 (June 20, 1907): 12122.
54. S. G. Hobson, Is a Political Party Necessary? The Gospel of Superimposition. A Rejoinder to Mr. Wells, NA 1 (July 11, 1907): 169 70.
55. Clifford Sharp, Is a Political Party Necessary? A Plea for Inactivity, NA 1 (July 18,
1907): 185 86.
56. Florence Farr, Ibsens Women. No. 1. Hedda Gabler, NA 1 (October 17, 1907): 389 90;
Ibsens Women. No. 2. Rebecca West, NA 2 (October 31, 1907): 8 9; Ibsens Women. No. 3.
Nora Helmer, NA 2 (November 14, 1907): 48 49; Ibsens Women. No. 4. The Lady from the
Sea, NA 2 (November 30, 1907): 87; Ibsens Women. No. 5. Rita Allmers, NA 2 (December
21, 1907): 148; and Ibsens Women. No. 6. Hilda Wangel, NA 2 (January 4, 1908): 188 89.
57. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Art of the East and the West, NA 2 (March 21, 1908):
408 9.
58. Edward Carpenter, Music-Drama in the Future, NA 3 (August 15, 1908): 31112; NA 3
(August 22, 1908): 33435.
59. Angelo S. Rappoport, Ibsen, Nietzsche, and Kierkegaard, NA 3 (September 19, 1908):
408 9; NA 3 (September 26, 1908): 428 29.
60. Hilaire Belloc, Thoughts on Modern Thought, NA 2 (December 7, 1907): 108.
61. See A. R. Orage, Towards Socialism. II, NA 1 (October 10, 1907): 375.
62. Belloc, Thoughts on Modern Thought, 109.
09/06/11 4:01 AM
lee garver
115
63. Replies to Mr. Belloc, NA 2 (December 14, 1907): 129.

64. Belloc, Thoughts on Modern Thought, 108.
65. This is the title of the English translation Levy would oversee during the next year. The
original Italian title is simply Sulle Tracce Della Vita.
66. Oscar Levy, review of Leo Gioacchino Seras Sulle Tracce Della Vita, NA 2 (December 7,
1907): 107.
67. George Bernard Shaw, Driving Capital Out of the Country. VI. The Parasitic Proletariat, NA 2 (December 7, 1907): 11112.
68. Edwin Pugh, Charles Dickens as a Socialist. Part I. Chapter III. The Dark Years of His
Boyhood, NA 2 (December 7, 1907): 105 6.
69. Magazines of the Month, NA 2 (December 7, 1907): 11516.
70. George Bernard Shaw, Chesterton and Belloc, NA 2 (February 15, 1908): 309 11.
71. Magazines of the Month, 11516.
09/06/11 4:01 AM

Neither Progressive Nor Reactionary. Reassessing The Cultural Politics of The New Age (Little On GK)

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Neither Progressive nor Reactionary: Reassessing the Cultural Politics of The New Age

Author(s): Lee Garver

neither progressive nor reactionary: reassessing the

neither progressive nor reactionary

neither progressive nor reactionary

neither progressive nor reactionary

a socialist transformation of Great Britain,14 not because they necessarily

neither progressive nor reactionary

themselves as the natural leaders of any movement to bring political and

notoriously freewheeling and at times bitterly antagonistic magazine could

neither progressive nor reactionary

wrangling than he was in building community and promoting intellectual

neither progressive nor reactionary

of Socialistic measuresa clear swipe at the priority the Webbs placed on

to do ofciallysupply a co-ordinating and educational link for the

neither progressive nor reactionary

JMPS 2.1_04_Garver.indd 100

JMPS 2.1_04_Garver.indd 101

neither progressive nor reactionary

almost all lower-middle- to upper-middle-class socialist intellectuals, Orage

JMPS 2.1_04_Garver.indd 102

the magazine, a feature titled First Public Conference on Mr. Wells

JMPS 2.1_04_Garver.indd 103

neither progressive nor reactionary

and readers. Martin speaks movingly, for example, of Orages editorial

JMPS 2.1_04_Garver.indd 104

JMPS 2.1_04_Garver.indd 105

neither progressive nor reactionary

party, to speak on the subject, and he immediately touched off a frenzy of

JMPS 2.1_04_Garver.indd 106

page. Where previously the periodical had been subtitled An Independent

JMPS 2.1_04_Garver.indd 107

neither progressive nor reactionary

JMPS 2.1_04_Garver.indd 108

JMPS 2.1_04_Garver.indd 109

neither progressive nor reactionary

JMPS 2.1_04_Garver.indd 110

JMPS 2.1_04_Garver.indd 111

neither progressive nor reactionary

JMPS 2.1_04_Garver.indd 112

JMPS 2.1_04_Garver.indd 113

neither progressive nor reactionary

22. Quoted in Martin, The New Age under Orage, 21.

JMPS 2.1_04_Garver.indd 114

63. Replies to Mr. Belloc, NA 2 (December 14, 1907): 129.

JMPS 2.1_04_Garver.indd 115

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