[Offprint:] '"Left Wings" and the C3 Mind',

Lewis (Wyndham)

[Offprint:] '"Left Wings" and the C3 Mind',

extracted from The British Union Quarterly, I:1.

Description: foxed, a few pencil marks by D.G. Bridson (see below) in the margins, a few leaves nicked at foot, pp. 22-34, crown 8vo, loose pages, good condition

Publication Details: [British Union Quarterly,] [January-April 1937]

Notes: Scarce; the stock of the periodical reputedly destroyed during the Second World War. The present copy is either an offprint or an extract from its inaugural issue, providing us with Lewis's contribution only – which seems quite enough.Lewis's controversial contribution to the organ of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists – the only time he openly associated with the far right – was a mis-step that he would struggle to disentangle himself from for the remainder of his career, and which has continued to taint his legacy. The axe being ground is largely against the unanimous mass of l...moreScarce; the stock of the periodical reputedly destroyed during the Second World War. The present copy is either an offprint or an extract from its inaugural issue, providing us with Lewis's contribution only – which seems quite enough.Lewis's controversial contribution to the organ of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists – the only time he openly associated with the far right – was a mis-step that he would struggle to disentangle himself from for the remainder of his career, and which has continued to taint his legacy. The axe being ground is largely against the unanimous mass of left-wing intellectuals, who have created a 'one-sided distribution of Opinion' (p. 22) that Lewis is instinctively inclined to redress; in such ranks he includes Bertrand Russell, H.G. Wells, Virginia Woolf ('Mrs Wolf' [sic]), T.S. Eliot (though even Lewis seems immediately dubious of the latter's leftist credentials), E.M. Forster, Rebecca West, W.H. Auden, et al.Avowedly 'objective, [...] detached', Lewis stops short of endorsing or aligning himself with Fascism, but does proceed on the sympathetic basis of a common enemy – i.e., Marxism, the 'enormous evil [...] dark apotheosis of all that is worst' (pp. 30-1) – and the choice of audience is damning enough; he was not alone in accepting this invitation to provide an intellectual sheen to the party's odious programme – this inaugural issue also included Roy Campbell and Ezra Pound, the latter, we need hardly be surprised, distinguishing himself as a repeat offender. In respect of Lewis, neither he nor, one would suspect, the BUF displayed any appetite for his further participation. This copy is from the collection of poet, critic, and radio producer, D.G. Bridson, who discusses this and other related work in his 1972 monograph, 'The Filibuster: A Study of the Political Ideas of Wyndham Lewis'; there he considers how Lewis's free-wheeling disquisition 'must have caused many a simple Blackshirt to scratch his baffled head', not least his conclusion that 'You stand to-day where Socialism stood yesterday', in terms to which, Bridson remarks, 'William Morris himself might almost have subscribed' and that would hardly have been palatable to Mosley and his followers. HIDE

Bibliography: (Pound & Grover E196; Morrow & Lafourcade D242)

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Price: £450

Subject: Modern First Edition

Published Date: 1937]

Stock Number: 70682

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