Ellery Sedgwick

The editor of The Atlantic from 1909 to 1938 called on the United States to abandon its neutrality and enter the war “purely for a world idea.”

During his thirty years as editor of the Atlantic ELLERY SEDGWICK traveled widely, wishing to see for himself what was going on in lands far from the Hub. Since his retirement in 1938 he has continued to travel, observe, and write despite the painful handicap which arthritis has imposed. He has lived abroad for the past four winters; and his colorful essays on Spain, Sicily, Portugal, and Home compose the nucleus for his next book, which he facetiously calls Europe in a Wheel Chair.

Editor of the Atlantic from 1908 to 1938,ELLERY SEDGWICKbuilt his policy on the belief that an editor should be his own legman. From his annual trips to England and his visits to France, South America, Japan, Italy, and Spain, he returned with personal impressions and manuscripts which enlivened the Atlantic. Despite the handicap of arthritis, he is still an ardent traveler, as will be seen from the enjoyable essay which follows.

This is the second of a pair of articles on Spain by ELLEIIY SEDGWICK,Editor of the Atlantic from 1908 to 1938. The Paradox of Spain appeared in the September issue. Mr. Sedgwick made his first extended visit to Spain in the year of the King’s abdication (1931). He went back again in 1937. this time in company with his friend Cameron Forbes, the former Governor General of the Philippines. And for the past three years he has spent the winter on the Peninsula, noting the contrasts and characteristics which have made Spain a special focus of American interest and controversy.

Editor of the Atlantic from 1908 to 1938, ELLERY SEDGWICK made his first visit to Spain in the year of the King’s abdication (1931). He went back again in 1937. this time in company with his friend Cameron Forbes, the former Governor General of the Philippines. And for the past three years he has spent the winter on the Peninsula noting the contrasts and characteristics which have made Spain a special focus of American interest since first Columbus showed us the way.

ELLERY SEDGWICK,who was Editor of the Atlantic from 1908 to 1938, first began to receive the manuscripts of James Norman Hall in 1912. Hall, a young graduate from Grinnell College, had come to Boston to work as an investigator for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and in the evening hours devoted himself to the writing of poems and of essays not many of which found their mark. Hall was cycling in England in the summer of 1914, and when the war broke out, he volunteered as a ”Canadian“ in Kitchener’s Mob: later he was transferred and trained as a pilot in the Lafayette Escadrille. It was in these war years that his first major contributions began to appear in the Atlantic. From that time on, no contributor was more beloved.

Editor of the Atlantic from 1908 to 1938, ELLERY SEDGWICK built his policy on the belief that an editor should be his own legman. From his annual trips to England and his visits to France, South America, Japan, Italy, and Spain, he returned with personal impressions and manuscripts which enlivened the Atlantic. Despite the handicap of arthritis, he is still an ardent traveler, as will be seen from the enjoyable essay which follows.

Following his graduation from Groton and Harvard, ELLERY SEDGWICKserved his editorial apprenticeship on the staff of the Youth’s Companion; he piloted a leaky Leslie’s Monthly through a rough sea; worked for a year with S. S. McClure, and then as an editor of D. Appleton & Co. In 1908 he returned to Boston to become the proprietor and eighth editor of the Atlantic. In the thirty years of his editorship the magazine rose from a circulation of 15.000 to 105.000. and with this gain went a widening interest and no lessening of quality. The wise reflections on editing which follow form the introduction to Mr. Sedgwick’s capacious anthology, Atlantic Harvest.