Rhythm and the Blue Review: the émigré connection

Rhythm, established in 1911, was an avant-garde publication with a bias towards Symbolism, the arts and Post-Impressionism, the music of Debussy and Mahler and the philosophy of Bergson. The list of contributors, unknown at the time beyond the confines of the Left Bank in Paris, reads impressively today and included Derain, Picasso, Tristan Derème and Francis Carco. John Middleton Murry and his future wife Katherine Mansfield, both co-editors of the magazine during its short life, were well read in French literature; Murry in particular had spent time in Paris and made many acquaintances, who were now persuaded to write for or illustrate the magazine. Francis Carco’s early poetry would be published in Rhythm, confirming from the outset its strong French literary bias, with Tristan Derème as another regular contributor. Claire Tomalin is critical of their contribution: ‘Carco contributed Lettres de Paris alternately with another poet, Tristan Derème; The plan looked good, but the articles provided were not, Carco and Derème both being better poets than journalists’ (Tomalin, p. 99). This paper will highlight the extent of the French creative input into both magazines and also consider Murry’s and Mansfield’s own contributions, which frequently took French subjects as their theme. Integrated into the principal intellectual and artistic currents of French life, both editors would assimilate this Gallic creativity and its view of life, literature and art. This influence would manifest itself on the pages of Rhythm and its short-lived reincarnation as the Blue Review. As a result, both little magazines could be described as having derived much of their inspiration and creativity from France