We plead guilty. Evergreen magazine is a conspiracy. For years we have conspired with the leaders of the cultural and social revolution to give you a new way of looking at the world and a new world to look at.
Evergreen magazine ad, 1969
Barney [Rosset] has not been properly acknowledged for morphing the sociopolitical terrain of the 1960s and early 70s. Along with the folks like Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary, Bob Dylan and the Beatles, Barney Rosset created the 1960s; he was directly engaged with shaping the culture and changing the literary landscape – Barney always supported ‘the underground’ (that was his catch phrase in any advertising for the Evergreen Review); he loved writers that came with a new way of looking at the world, capturing it with words that weren’t commonplace in earlier books. He gave writers the freedom to go against the grain, to push back against the established rules of society. The FBI and CIA were not fans of the politics he presented in the Evergreen Review. Even if Barney didn’t personally endorse everything he published, he fought for your right to read it.
Pat Thomas
For those who don’t know me, I have multiple interests, which translates into magpie behaviour when I go on the internet or explore book shops and museums. I collect books, facts, and images of… everything.
But two particular focuses (relevant here) are the 20th century and graphic design. I studied graphic design in college, so I ended up with a fixation in collecting print media of various forms, including magazines (mostly digitally, as I don’t have the room (or funds) to collect physical examples). As for the 20th century … well it’s a very interesting time period – period.
When a book about a magazine (featuring its covers) entered the list of stuff to review on Joyzine, I jumped at it instantly, like a magpie in a jeweller’s shop. And boy, I was not disappointed in what I found.
For those who have never heard of The Evergreen Review (which did include me) The Evergreen Review is a literary magazine based in New York, founded by Barney Rosset. It ran in print from 1957 until 1984, but has since been relaunched online from 1998 to 2013, with Barney and his wife Astrid Myers as editors, and again in 2017, under John Oakes and Dale Peck.
Evergreen was the first publication to publish many notable works by noted 20th century writers, including Samuel Beckett, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer, Henry Miller, Harold Pinter …. and so on.
But its also noted for its graphical content. Its early issues are littered with cartoons, and by the mid-1960s its contained photos and illustrations of in erotic nature (which many magazines did back then). This included the adult-orientated comic series The Adventures of Phoebe Zeit-Geist, written by Michael O’Donoghue and drawn by Frank Springer.
It is a bastion of the America’s first amendment. A magazine not afraid to offend the powers at be.
The book contains every front cover from 1957 to 1973, as well as hundreds of pages as they appeared in the magazine. A rich visual collection documenting the Beat Generation, Hippies, the Black Power Movement and Anti-Vietnam protests. Great for those who collect visuals, like me.
But the page reproductions are readable, for those who want to read them. Readable highlights include, poems by Ho Chi Minh, while he was in prison in 1942, coverage of the magazine’s parent, Grove Press, censorship trial in Boston over the publication of Naked Lunch, and an early interview of Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, during her US tour in 1969.
In all, a great book for those curious about the upheaval of the 1960s.
Dispatches from the Literary Underground: Evergreen Review – Covers and Essays 1957-1973 is on sale now.
Review by Gordon Wallace
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