Contemporary Review, The

a periodical founded in 1866 as the organ of the Metaphysical Society. Matthew Arnold, Walter Pater, William Ruskin, and Thomas Huxley were among the contributors who established its high reputation for the quality of its articles on literary, socio-cultural, and scientific topics. Sir Percy Bunting was its editor from 1882 to 1910. Around the turn of the century work by Rudyard Kipling, W. B. Yeats, and H. G. Wells was featured and a continuing interest in European literature was initiated with essays on Ibsen and Tolstoy. In 1911 Bunting was succeeded as editor by George Peabody Gooch, who pursued his intention of making the Review the leading monthly on foreign affairs; Leonard Woolf headed the foreign affairs section in 1922 and 1923, after which it was run by George Glasgow until 1954. The journal's authoritative commentaries on political and social matters were conducted from a position described by Gooch as ‘just a little to the left of the centre’. During the 1930s the Review was also noted for its distinguished treatments of literature, science, and history by contributors who included Frederick Boas, Gilbert Murray, Julian Huxley, and Arnold Toynbee. In 1955 it absorbed the Fortnightly Review. Prior to his retirement in 1960, Gooch began including poetry as a regular aspect of the magazine; under Rosalind Wade's editorship, which commenced in 1970, short stories as well as poetry became a staple feature of the Review, in addition to which it has devoted considerable attention to the theatre.