The New Criterion (Volume 1, No. 1)

New York: The Foundation for Cultural Review, Inc, 1982. Magazine. Stapled wraps, 7 x 10 inches. Toning with a slight crease to bottom-right cover corner, else fine.. A bright and original first issue of The New Criterion. The New York-based monthly literary magazine was founded by Hilton Kramer (1928-2012) in 1982 to speak plainly and vigorously about the problems facing the artist and the life of the mind in modern American society. Prior to launching The New Criterion, Kramer served as art critic for The Nation and, from 1965 to 1982, the New York Times where he challenged the Leftist political bias and perceived nihilism of the paper's art criticism. In 1982 Kramer resigned from the New York Times to found The New Criterion with pianist and music critic Samuel Lipman, establishing what would become one of the premier magazines covering art culture and criticism. The magazine is renowned and unique in its abiding emphasis upon artistic classicism and political conservatism. Its name is a reference to The Criterion, a British literary magazine that T. S. Eliot edited from 1922 to 1939. The New Criterion has established itself as a cultural force since its inception forty years ago, and has since included a number of leading writers, poets, academics, politicians, and commentators among its contributors, including Roger Scruton, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, William F. Buckley Jr., and Penelope Fitzgerald.