The New Age

Overview

“Believeing that the daring object and purpose of the universal will of life is the creation of a race of supremely and progressively intelligent beings, THE NEW AGE will devote itself to the serious endeavor to co-operate with the purposes of life, and to enlist in that noble service the help of serious students of the new contemplative and imaginative order” (vol.1, iss. 1, page 8).

 

The New Age played a uniquely powerful role in the social and political discussions of its time. As a Socialist review, this magazine played a central role in the debates over modernism. Thanks to its lead editor, A. R. Orage, the magazine was a powerful influence, featuring work from many esteemed modernist writers such as Katherine Mansfield, Ezra Pound, Beatrice Hastings, Walter Sickert and Herbert Read.

In its first issue, Socialism was defined “being in its largest sense, no less than the will of society to perfect itself, even as in the personal sense Religion is the will of the individual towards self perfection…Socialism is a progressive will that is neither excliusively democratic nor aristocratic, neither anarchist nor individualist. Each of the great permanent moods of human nature as imperfectly reflected in the hierarchy of society, has its inalienable right to a place in the social pyramid” (1.1.8).

The periodical had a unique aesthetic. The New Age was published weekly in folio size. The periodical was printed in double columns and had a variety of text sizes, imitating newspaper publications.

In response to the first issue of the periodical, H. G. Wells said:

“You are going to make a most valuable, interesting, difficult and, I think I may venture to add, successful experiment. Socialism in England has long stood in need of what you propose to give it— a Review, which, without being official, shall be representative and which shall direct itself primarily not to propaganda now to politics, but to the development of Socialist thought… Your enterprise will, I am sure, be of the utmost help and value…It will do with the freedom and vigour of irresponsibility what it would have been almost impossible under existing conditions to do officially—Supply a coordinating and educational link for the new members who are now coming in and give fresh scope to the vigorous minds in the society who are now seeking and needing the discipline of written expression.”

 

The periodical continued to bear a great social weight until a change in editors. The periodical became less radical, less charged and eventually was discontinued.