The Southern Review

The Southern Review

Winter 2013 cover
Editor	Emily Nemens, Jessica Faust
Categories	Literary magazine
Frequency	Quarterly
Publisher	Louisiana State University Press
First issue	1935
Website	www.thesouthernreview.org
ISSN	0038-4534
OCLC number	473100598

The Southern Review is a quarterly literary magazine that was established by Robert Penn Warren in 1935 at the behest of Charles W. Pipkin and funded by Huey Long as a part of his investment in Louisiana State University. It publishes fiction, poetry, critical essays, and excerpts from novels in progress by established and emerging writers and includes reproductions of visual art. The Southern Review continues to follow Warren's articulation of the mission when he said that it gives "writers decent company between the covers, and [concentrates] editorial authority sufficiently for the journal to have its own distinctive character and quality".

The initial staff consisted of editor-in-chief Charles W. Pipkin, Robert Penn Warren and Cleanth Brooks as managing editors, and Albert Erskine as business manager. In 1942, after 28 issues, publishing was interrupted and restarted again in 1965. Past editors-in-chief have been Albert R. Erskine Jr., Lewis P. Simpson, Donald E. Stanford, James Olney, Fred Hobson, Dave Smith, Bret Lott, and Jeanne M. Leiby. The current co-editors are Emily Nemens and Jessica Faust.

In 1936, shortly after the journal's founding, poetry editor Morton D. Zabel credited The Southern Review with "a competence almost unrivaled at the moment in American letters." In 1941, on the occasion of the journal's 5th anniversary, John Crowe Ransom stated "The Southern Review's five year achievement is close to the best thing in the history of American letters."