Discussions of the importance of magazines to literature in general and the short story in particular generally emphasize two themes: the role of magazines in distributing literature to the masses and the countervailing importance of ‘little magazines’ in promoting experimental and avant-garde writing. These two trends, often seen as opposites, are in fact sides of the same coin, since the need for experimental, even revolutionary, magazines presupposes the existence of conservative and mainline periodicals that cater to wide audiences and received standards of taste and opinion. Among the established periodicals, it is customary to speak of highbrow, middlebrow and lowbrow levels. Crude as these labels are they are handy enough to justify being used here.

Few would be willing to say exactly when the ‘little magazine’ phenomenon erupted, but in Britain the Yellow Book (1894–97) and Savoy (1896) might serve as convenient starting points, since both were deliberate reactions against the established ‘big’ magazines like the Strand. New Age (1894–1938) might be a rival, except that its early oppositional stance was more political than literary, until 1907 when A. R. Orage assumed the editorship and when Arnold Bennett's contributions promoted new Russian and French authors. Rhythm (1911–13) is best remembered for printing some of the early work of D. H. Lawrence, Ford Maddox Ford and Katherine Mansfield; it was superseded by the Blue Review, which like Rhythm was edited by John Middleton Murry. The Little Review (1914–29) was American, but it owes much of its fame to its association with such British writers as W. B. Yeats, Wyndham Lewis, Ford Maddox Ford and of course James Joyce. A. R. Orage's New Age (1907–22) provided a home for Richard Aldington and perhaps most notably Katherine Mansfield in her formative years. Similarly, the Coterie issued only six numbers (1919–20) and was followed by the New Coterie (1925–7). F. R. Leavis's Scrutiny published no fiction but exerted an influence out of all proportion to its circulation of 750 to 1,500. The Egoist was primarily devoted to Imagist poetry but was first to publish Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a serial, in 1914–15.