Editing Edgell Rickword (section)

==Critic==

He then took up literary work in London. He reviewed for ''[[The Times Literary Supplement]]'', which led to a celebrated review of [[T. S. Eliot]]'s ''[[The Waste Land]]''. [[J. C. Squire]] published him in the ''London Mercury'', and [[Desmond MacCarthy]] as literary editor of the ''[[New Statesman]]'' gave him work.

He started the ''[[Calendar of Modern Letters]]'' literary review, now highly regarded, in March 1925. It lasted until July 1927, assisted by [[Garman sisters#Douglas (1903–1969)|Douglas Garman]] and then [[Bertram Higgins]], and contributions from his cousin [[C. H. Rickword]]. The ''Scrutinies'' books of collected pieces from it were a ''succes d'estime''; the purpose of the publication was a mass killing of the sacred cows of Edwardian literature ([[G. K. Chesterton]], [[John Galsworthy]], [[John Masefield]], [[George Bernard Shaw]], [[H. G. Wells]]).<ref>David Perkins, ''A History of Modern Poetry: From the 1890s to the High Modernist Mode'' (1976), p. 419.</ref> Its undoubted influence as a precursor of later criticism was very marked in the early days of ''[[Scrutiny (journal)|Scrutiny]]'', the magazine founded a few years later by [[F. R. Leavis]] and [[Q. D. Leavis]].<ref>[[Bernard Bergonzi]], "The Calendar of Modern Letters", ''The Yearbook of English Studies'', Vol. 16, Literary Periodicals Special Number (1986), pp. 150–163.</ref> Rickword also wrote for that publication.