Editing Edgell Rickword (section)

==Communist==

He joined the [[Communist Party of Great Britain]] in 1934,<ref>Hobday, p. 153.</ref> and became increasingly active in political work during the period of the [[Spanish Civil War]]; while still writing poetry. He was friendly with [[Randall Swingler]], the 'official' poetry voice of the CPGB, and with [[Jack Lindsay (writer)|Jack Lindsay]], his only real rival as a theoretician. He was closely connected with the leading cultural figures on the hard Left, such as [[Mulk Raj Anand]], [[Ralph Winston Fox]], [[Julius Lipton]], [[A. L. Morton]], [[Sylvia Townsend Warner]] and [[Alick West]]. When [[Lawrence & Wishart]] was created as the official CPGB publishing house, in 1936, Rickword became a director.<ref>Hobday, p. 168.</ref> It was through Rickword that Lawrence & Wishart published [[Nancy Cunard]]'s ''Negro: An Anthology'', though at her own expense.<ref>Anne Chisholm, ''Nancy Cunard: A Biography'' (1979), p. 277.</ref>

At that same period he was a co-founder of the ''[[Left Review]]'', which he edited. His associates included [[James Boswell (artist)|James Boswell]], who was the art editor; they had met around 1929.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.jboswell.info/hogarth.html |title=Biography |access-date=2008-11-02 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://archive.today/20120908234303/http://www.jboswell.info/hogarth.html |archivedate=8 September 2012 }}</ref><ref>Andy Croft (editor). ''A Weapon in the Struggle'' (1998), p. 29.</ref> ''Left Review'' existed from 1934 to 1938, was set up by Rickword and Douglas Garman, had as writers both CPGB members and notable figures outside the party, and founded Marxist criticism in the UK.<ref>Laura Marcus, Peter Nicholls, ''The Cambridge History of Twentieth-century English Literature'' (2004), p. 387.</ref><ref>M. Keith Booker, ''Encyclopedia of Literature and Politics: Censorship, Revolution, and Writing'' (2005), p. 419.</ref>

Later he became editor of ''Our Time'', the Communist review, from 1944 to 1947, working with [[Arnold Rattenbury]]<ref>{{cite news| url = http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article1906567.ece| title = The Times & The Sunday Times}}{{dead link|date=September 2024|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref> and [[David Holbrook]]. Rickword had an upbeat view at the time on the possibilities of popular culture and radical politics, and the circulation rose as he broadened the publication's scope from popular political poetry.<ref>Simon Featherstone, ''War Poetry: An Introductory Reader'' (1995), p. 46.</ref> The post-war clique around ''Our Time'', the Salisbury Group (named for a pub), included [[Christopher Hill (historian)|Christopher Hill]], [[Charles Hobday]], Holbrook, Mervyn Jones, Lindsay, Rattenbury, [[Montagu Slater]], Swingler, [[E. P. Thompson]]; and [[Doris Lessing]] joined it.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/charles-hobday-6239.html |title=Charles Hobday: Biographer and editor of Edgell Rickword |first=Andy |last=Croft |newspaper=[[The Independent]] |date=15 March 2005 |access-date=2022-03-20}}</ref>

In 1949, writing a preface to [[Christopher Caudwell]]'s ''Further Studies in a Dying Culture,'' Rickword stated that themes of Caudwell's essay is "the unity of thinking and doing, the nullity of either in isolation." Further, Rickword wrote that Caudwell here "reminds us that poetry and art were as essential to his sense of fitness as bread and air."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Caudwell |first=Christopher |title=Further Studies in a Dying Culture |publisher=The Bodley Head |year=1949 |location=London |pages=Preface by Rickword, pages 7 and 11 |language=English}}</ref>