Dial Dies

As it must to most magazines carrying little advertising, Death will come next month to the resolutely literary Dial. Reasons for the demise were not forthcoming last week from the Dial's "adviser," Scofield Thayer, or from Editress Marianne Moore, or from President James T. Watson Jr. They simply announced that publication would cease after the July issue.

Assistant Editress Ellen Thayer, cousin of Adviser Thayer, denied a report that he had tired of paying Dial deficits. "We have an advertising manager who gets advertisements each month. We're not a charity organization, you know," she said.

When the Dial first was issued in Chicago, in 1880, it appeared fortnightly under the editorship of one Francis F. Browne. Its book reviews covered many pages, went into great detail concerning novels and their authors, even commenting on typographical errors. In 1918 it moved to Manhattan with Robert Morss Lovett as editor. Then its letters were exchanged for issues, its policies became freedom of speech, release of political prisoners. In 1920 under the leadership of Adviser Thayer, it became a monthly with a program devoted to esoteric odds and ends, good printing, and giving a chance to rare or unknown authors whom Adviser Scofield considered worth while. Some of the Dial's feats and features were: D. H. Lawrence's long short-story, "The Man Who Loved Islands," Arthur Symon's obituary estimate of Thomas Hardy; the first pages of Oswald Spengler's "Decline of the West": The last words of Anatole France; new verse by Amy Lowell, Carl Sandburg, e. e. ("lower case") cummings; contributions from George Saintsbury, Maxim Gorky, Thomas Mann, T. S. Eliot, Ford Madox Hueffer.