A Lilliput Magazine Anthology 1937-46

**updated 29 December 2024, see at bottom**

Lilliput magazine ran from 1937 to 1960, publishing some 277 issues. Earlier this year Chris Harte published a History and Bibliography of the magazine, which was described here at Wormwoodiana. As with some of his earlier magazine studies, Harte has followed up with an anthology.  This one is titled A Lilliput Magazine Anthology 1937-46 (Sports History Publishing, ISBN 9781898010197), and it contains some forty-eight stories and articles, selected from the first ten years and chosen to represent the quality of its many contributions. 

The anthology contains works by a variety of writers, from Europe, England  and even the United States.  Notable works included are "The Fortune Teller" (October 1937) by Karel Capek, "A Story from Spain" (October 1939) by Ernest Hemingway, "Think Odette Think" (April 1940) by Bernard Shaw. Other contributors include Ludwig Bemelmans, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (better known by her surname alone), Victor Pritchett (an early byline of V.S. Pritchett), the Canadian Stephen Leacock, and the Americans, Alexander Woollcott and Robert Arthur.

Most of the contributions are fairly short, and the anthology is rounded out with longer essays at the beginning on the creation of the magazine and on its first ten years, with a roster of the writers (with photographs) at the end of the book. The whole makes up 163 pages. 

Let me single out two here of my favorites from the anthology, which  are likely also of interest to Wormwoodiana readers. Thomas Burke, known for his Limehouse Nights and other books, has a piece on "Victorian Nightlife" (August 1944), which concludes: "We ask ourselves where are the Victorian prudery and humbug we have heard so much about, and we end by doubting they ever existed."  Maurice Richardson, author of the unique Exploits of Engelbrecht (1950) --most of whose stories first appeared in Lilliput in the late 1940s-- and of a 1959 Freudian essay on "The Psychology of Ghost Stories" that was later followed by Robert Aickman, contributed a piece on "Meeting a Ghost" (January 1946)--but it's not about the type of ghost one might at first expect, but about meeting a writer who ghost-writes books.

Update: I have just learned that a second anthology, covering the years 1947-60, and including around 60 pieces, is under preparation. Publication is planned for mid-2025.