On Two Sides of the Desk" [in] The New Quarterly, v.I, no.2 (Summer 1934) by [PROLETARIAN LITERATURE] DAHLBERG, Edward - 1934

Rock Island, IL: The New Quarterly, 1934. Single quarto issue in printed thick paper wrappers; 26pp. Faint vertical crease; single ink stamp to front cover ("Bancroft Library / Mooney Papers / Withdrawn"). Else unmarked, and a clean, fresh and attractive copy.

The New Quarterly, a magazine devoted to proletarian prose and poetry, and edited by the Chicago poet Jay Du Von, appeared for only two issues in 1934. "Like many of its fellow, The New Quarterlyi reflec ts the preoccupation of many of its writers with political subject matter..." (Hoffman, p.324). In this second and final issue are contributions by Edward Dahlberg ("On Two Sides of the Desk," an extract from the yet-to-be-published third volume of his Proletarian trilogy, Those Who Perish); James T. Farrell (s ahort story, "Lord Have Mercy on Their Souls"); and a symposium on the question "For Whom Do You Write," with responses by twenty American writers including Sherwood Anderson, Granville HIcks, Isador Schneider, Orrick Johns, Jack Conroy, Upton Sinclair, and others. This issue also includes an amusing letter to the editor from Ezra Pound, who posits the rhetorical question, referring generally to the magazine's socialist orientation, "Is mankind more stupid than cows?" An elusive and short-lived, but important Depression-era publication. HOFFMANN (The Little Magazine: a History and Bibliography) p.324.