Frederick Lewis Allen

FREDERICK LEWIS ALLEN, who retired as Editor of Harper’s Magazine on September 30 of this year, began his editorial career as the assistant editor of the Atlantic Monthly in 1914, For thirty years he was affiliated with Harper’s Magazine and for twelve years was its able and discriminating Editor-in-Chief. At the dinner which was given in his honor, Mr. Allen expressed his credo in words which will be meaningful to all aspirants in American letters. The author of Only Yesterday, The Big Change, The Lords of Creation, The Great Pierpont Morgan, he now plans to devote more time to his writing; and in recognition of this we think it appropriate to reprint the poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes which follows Mr. Allen’s remarks.

An editor who brings to his own writing the accuracy of an historian and the humor and judgment of a native philosopher, FREDERICK LEWIS ALLEN was the Assistant Editor of the Atlantic from 1914 to 1916, the Managing Editor of Century in 1916-1917, and after eighteen years’ experience on the staff of Harper’s became its Editor in Chief in 1941. With the yardstick which he applied so skillfully in his beloved best-seller Only Yesterday he measures the growth, maturity, and influence of American periodicals.