Literary critic and historian
Boris Ford has stated that it was L. C. Knights "who had the idea of creating such a literary quarterly, and took steps to bring it into being on 15 May 1932 - Knights's 26th birthday. Knights was the only one of Scrutiny's editors who served in that role for every one of its 76 issues." The first issue appeared early in May 1932, with 100 copies sold in the first week, with subscribers including
T.S. Eliot,
George Santayana,
R. H. Tawney and
Aldous Huxley. The circulation rose slowly, with 750 copies being printed later in the 1930s, and 1000 copies in the 1940s. At its height in the 1950s,
Scrutiny only printed 1,500 copies, but most of these were held by colleges and academic libraries for circulation. As such,
Scrutiny was widely read, and Leavis became very influential in 20th century
literary criticism in part because he was editor of the journal. After writing many articles for the journal, music critic
Wilfrid Mellers appeared on the editorial board of the January 1942 issue, and continued in that position until the December 1948 issue. Besides its editorial staff,
Scrutiny was able to have a contributing body of many important
literary critics, including:
Q.D. Leavis, Marius Bewley,
William Empson, L.C. Knights,
Michael Oakeshott,
Herbert Read,
I. A. Richards,
George Santayana,
Derek A. Traversi, and
Martin Turnell. Some of the contributors to
Scrutiny were also contributors to
Left Review. Many contributors focused on the topics of education and politics, but, according to
Richard Poirier, "its most important achievement was a nearly complete revaluation of English literature". ==Critical response==