| The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07. |
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| Nathan, George Jean |
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| 1882–1958, American editor and drama critic, b. Fort Wayne, Ind. He left the New York Herald to join H. L. Mencken in editing Smart Set (1914–23), which they made into a guide for the young American intellectual. In 1924 they founded the American Mercury, a magazine that fostered the most rebellious and lively literature and drama; for a decade the magazine was the arbiter of American literary taste. Nathan was himself primarily a drama critic, famous for the erudition and cynicism of his reviews; he was an early champion of Eugene O’Neill. He was a founder and an editor (1932–35) of the American Spectator, and after 1943 he wrote a syndicated column for the New York Journal-American. His criticism appeared in many volumes: Mr. George Jean Nathan Presents (1917); The Critic and the Drama (1922); The Testament of a Critic (1931); Since Ibsen (1933); The World of George Jean Nathan, ed. by Charles Angoff (1952); and The Magic Mirror, edited by T. G. Curtiss (1960). He also set forth his philosophy of criticism in Autobiography of an Attitude (1925). | 1 | | See study by C. Frick (1943, repr. 1971). | 2 |
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| | | The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright © 2007 Columbia University Press. |
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