Tamarack Review

a quarterly journal of poetry, prose fiction, essays, and criticism established in 1956 in Toronto by Robert Weaver in association with Kildare Dobbs, Anne Wilkinson, William Toye, and others. Weaver and Toye remained as editors of the magazine throughout its career. The discontinuation of Northern Review (see First Statement and Preview) in 1956 was a motivating factor in the founding of Tamarack Review, which declared its commitment to literary merit as the sole criterion for publication of work by new and established writers; the maintenance of such standards resulted in adverse criticism of the magazine's apparent neglect of writing favoured by more emphatically nationalist literary factions. Its concern with aesthetic quality was also evident in its consistently attractive design and production and it rapidly achieved an international reputation as the finest Canadian literary periodical of its day. F. R. Scott, A. J. M. Smith, and Irving Layton were among the recognized writers whose verse was recurrently featured; it helped to foster the careers of Jay Macpherson, Leonard Cohen, and other notable Canadian poets of the 1960s, while Mordecai Richler and Alice Munro were among the emerging writers who contributed prose fiction. In 1982 it ceased publication. Robert Weaver edited The First Five Years (1963), an anthology of work which demonstrated the healthily eclectic character of the magazine.