A Grand Discovery at The Paris Review

Just in time for their annual fundraiser, The Paris Review has uncovered a delightful note from George Plimpton (the magazine’s founder, as well as many other things). During preparations to relocate their office to Chelsea, the staff “came across a batch of small, white booklets.”

“The Paris Review: Twenty Year Index, Issues 1–56 they were titled; they appeared to be lists of everything that had been published during the magazine’s first twenty-three years, and were put aside for recycling. Flipping through them later, we realized that the booklets also contained an introduction by George Plimpton, a founder of the magazine and its editor for the first fifty years of its history.”

Even if you aren’t going to tonight’s gala, you can still enjoy Plimpton’s introduction, which has been published on The Paris Review Daily. The note contains great insight into the history and culture of the magazine (a shipment of the magazine was once hidden from a US Customs censor), as well as some valuable advice (do not ask Hemingway about “the significance of the white bird that flies out of the gondola in Across the River and Into the Tree”).

Read it here.

***
–Benjamin Samuel is the co-editor of Electric Literature. He channels his inner Plimpton on Twitter.