NOW was a British political and literary magazine which George Woodcock founded in April 1940, while he was living in his mother's house in Marlow, Buckinghamshire and working in a variety of posts in the headquarters of the Great Western Railway at Paddington Station, London.Woodcroft 1982, p. 151.

Woodcock was prompted to start Now because of the closure of Horizon, which he rejected as being 'too much of a mandarin journal to continue the avant garde role of such little mags of the late 1930s as Twentieth Century Verse and Contemporary Poetry and Prose.Woodcock 1982, p. 209. Consequently, faced with a 'sudden silencing of voices', he decided to start a magazine 'for young and disaffected writers'Woodcock 1982, p. 209..

The first issue appeared, in the spring of 1940, 'as a cyclo-styled sheet'Woodcock 1943, p. 2., for which Woodcock received financial help from a group of local pacifists.Robinson 1983, p. 23. In his Introduction to Now, he wrote that Now 'would seek to "perpetrate good writing and clear thought.'George Woodcock, Introduction. Now, 1st Series, No. 1, (Easter, 1940), p. 1. Cited by Robinson 1983, p. 23. He later elaborated: 'Now was established early in the war as a review for publishing literary matter and also as a forum for controversial writing which could not readily find publications under wartime conditions, and stated that its writers 'included Anarchists, Stalinists, Trotskyists, pacifists, and New Statesman moderates.'Orwell 1970, p. 258.

Two further issues were produced, which were printed, by the autumn of 1940. In March 1941, Now was 'restarted on a more ambitious scale, with a wider range of contributors'Woodcock 1943, p.2. Woodcock recalled:

The first seven issues of Now came to be called the 'Old Series'.Fetherling 1998, p. 34. The magazine wasn't published in 1942 because of what George Fetherling called, in his biography of Woodcock, 'the turmoil in Woodcock's personal and political lives'.Ibid.Fetherling documented (op. cit.: 30-32) that prior to the autumn of 1942 Woodcock had led an extremely unsettled peripatetic life. Also Woodcock decided to essentially become a deserter from performing his 'alternative service' of working in agriculture. In other words Woodcock effectively decided to 'go on the run'. Consequently, Woodcock launched the next series in 1943. It was published by Freedom Press and comprised nine volumes, the last one of which was dated July–August 1947. Among the many articles that were published in Now, Volume 5 included "Sexuality and Freedom", by Marie-Louise Berneri, the Italian anarchist, which was one of the first discussions of the ideas of Wilhelm Reich in Britain.Berneri 1945.

The 1942 criticism of Orwell In his London Letter which was published in the March–April 1942 issue of Partisan Review, George Orwell described NOW as 'a little anti-war paper' and cited it as an example of publications that published contributions by both pacificts and Fascists.Orwell 1968, p.180.Orwell was not alone in his criticism of NOW. Fetherling 1998, p. 34 observed: 'JULIAN SYMONS, AMONG OTHERS, criticized the first seven issues of NOW, what came to be called the Old Series, 1940-41, for including all shades and types of anti-authoritarian opinion, even right-wing versions.' (Initial emphases in the original) Woodcock replied to Orwell by stating that 'the review had abandoned its position as an independent forum, and has now become the cultural review of the British Anarchist movement.'In Orwell 1970, p. 259.

A week or so afterwards, Orwell invited Woodcock to participate in one of his BBC broadcasts to India.Woodcock 1982, p. 252. Woodcock accepted his invitation. Then they met again by chance, when Orwell remarked to him that there was no reason to let an 'argument on paper breed personal ill feeling'. Orwell struck Woodcock as wanting to be friendly.Woodcock 1982, p. 254. Neither of them mentioned their disagreement again. And they became friends. In 1946 Now published Orwell's celebrated article How the Poor Die.Now 2nd Series. 6. 1946.

The contributors Anarchist historian David Goodway noted that the contributors of Now included 'Orwell ("How the poor die"Now 2nd Series. 6. 1946.), Lawrence Durrell (the superb "Elegy on the Closing of the French Brothels"Now 2nd Series. 8. 30–32.), George Barker, W.S. Graham, Julian Symons, the undervalued painter Jankel Adler (an anarchist exile from Poland), Henry Miller, e.e. cummings, Paul Goodman, Kenneth Rexroth, Dwight Macdonald, Andrẻ Breton and Victor Serge, as well as Read, Comfort, Savage, Hewetson and M.L. Berneri.'Goodway 2012, p. 209. Other contributors included Mulk Raj Anand, Duke of Bedford, Marvin Barrett,Advertisement for NOW, Horizon, November 1941 (p.296) Roy Campbell,Advertisement for "NOW", Horizon, June 1941 (p.372). Rhys Davies,Advertisement for "NOW", Horizon, June 1941 (p.372). Hugh I'Anson Fausset,Advertisement for "NOW", Horizon, June 1941 (p.372). Roy Fuller, James Hanley, Julian Huxley, Mervyn Peake,Advertisement for "NOW", Horizon, November 1941 (p.296). Keidrych Rhys,Advertisement for "NOW", Horizon, November 1941 (p.296). F.A. Ridley,Advertisement for "NOW", Horizon, November 1941 (p.296). Rainer Marie Rilke (a reprint).Advertisement for "NOW", Horizon, June 1941 (p.372)., Francis Scarfe,Advertisement for "NOW", Horizon, June 1941 (p.372). Theodore Spencer,Advertisement for "NOW", Horizon, November 1941 (p.296). Ruthven Todd,Advertisement for "NOW", Horizon, June 1941 (p.372). Wilfred WellockAdvertisement for "NOW", Horizon, June 1941 (p.372). and Hugh Ross Williamson.

The closure of Now

Two explanations have been proposed about why Now closed. Julian Symons wrote that it ended 'when the emotional and practical burdens of running it became too great.'Symons 1981, p. 203. In contrast George Fetherling proposed that Woodcock 'let it die' because of three reasons: its circulation 'began to recede', the belief that George Orwell conveyed to Woodcock that its 'time had passed', with which Herbert Read 'was more or less in agreement', and because Woodcock was trying to complete his transformation from 'poet-pamphleteer to serious literary historian, biographer and critic.'Fetherling 1998, pp. 56-57.

Two widely-separated tributes have been paid to NOW. In 1981 Julian Symons wrote: 'Looking back on the issues that appeared between 1944 and 1947, it seems to me much the best periodical of a radical kind in England during those years.'Symons, 1981, p. 202. In 2012 David Goodway described it as being 'one of the very best little magazines of the 1940s'.Goodway 2012, p. 209.

Notes

References

Archive - The second series 1943 Volume 1 1943 Volume 2 1943 Volume 3 1943 Volume 4 1943 Volume 5 1943 Volume 6 1943 Volume 7 1943 Volume 8 1943 Volume 9