Pagany archive

Pagany: a native quarterly was a quarterly magazine founded and edited by Richard Johns to display and promote the writings of native- born Americans, including expatriates.

Johns was born Richard Johnson on October 29, 1904 in Lynn, Massachusetts. After dropping out of Classical High School in Lynn, Massachusetts, Johns worked at a number of odd jobs in the Boston and New York areas, while he pursued his interest in writing poetry. His first published poem, "Song Against Love," appeared in the first issue of the quarterly Casanova Jr.'s Tales in 1926. Later his writing appeared in a number of small literary magazines, including Greenwich Village Quill, Bozart, and Opportunity: a journal of Negro life.

Eventually Johns concluded that he did not have the creative continuity to write consistently excellent poetry, and although he continued to compose poems, he turned his primary attention to writing criticism and editing. His first published critique was of Frank Harris's My Life and Love (1927), which appeared in the June 1927 issue of theGreenwich Village Quill.

While he was working in New York, Johns studied comparative poetry and literary theory at Columbia and became acquainted with the publishing business through friendships with Stanley Rinehart, Edward Weeks, and George and Julie Rittenhouse. He also acquainted himself with a variety of little magazines, including Contact, transition, The Little Review, Blues, Hound & Horn, and The Dial.

By the Spring of 1929, after having analyzed the existing little magazines, Johns was convinced that he should initiate a quarterly which would display and promote the writings of native- born Americans, including the expatriates. His father, who had always supported his son's writing, provided a loan which financed the first year of publication.

In launching Pagany, Johns sought the support and editorial assistance of William Carlos Williams, inviting him to become a co-editor and contributor to Pagany. He also requested permission to use "Pagany" as the title of his magazine, explaining that the title derived from Williams's novel, A Voyage to Pagany (1928).

A further explanation of the magazine's title was provided in the first issue of the Pagany: "Pagus is a broad term, meaning any sort of collection of peoples from the smallest district or village to the country as an inclusive whole. Taking America as pagus, any one of us as the paganus, the inhabitant, and our conceptions, our agreements and disagreements, our ideas, ideals, whatever we have to articulate is pagany, our expression." (A Return to Pagany, p.50).

Although Williams declined to be co-editor of Pagany, he lent his support to the project by contributing his own work, including chapters of his novel White Mule (which was serialized in Pagany); soliciting writer-friends for contributions; reading and selecting manuscripts for inclusion in Pagany; and advising Johns on editorial aspects of the magazine.

Sherry Mangan, editor of Larus (whose unfilled subscriptions were absorbed by Pagany when Larus ceased), and Blues editor Charles Henri Ford also assisted Johns by encouraging the writers who contributed to their magazines to submit work to Pagany. Consequently, authors such as Kenneth Rexroth, Erskine Caldwell, Norman Macleod, Parker Tyler, Kathleen Tankersley Young, and Forrest Anderson contributed their work to Pagany. Gorham Munson and Ezra Pound also persuaded their colleagues to furnish Pagany with writing. Through Ezra Pound the work of Cocteau, Carnevali, H.D., and others became available.

Johns sought to publish the best writing by Americans regardless of literary camp or political affiliations. The only exceptions to his "Americans only" policy were appearances of a translation of Jean Cocteau's "Laic Mystery" and the work of Georges Hugnet.

From the first issue in the Spring of 1930, until the final issue in February of 1933, Pagany presented a remarkable sampling of the best American writing, especially in the realm of fiction. During those three years, Pagany's tables of contents contained the names of many prominent twentieth-century authors, including William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, Mary Butts, Kenneth Rexroth, Dudley Fitts, Hilda Doolittle, John Dos Passos, Charles Henri Ford, Conrad Aiken, e.e. cummings, and Louis Zukofsky.

Johns also included the work of writers who are not often remembered, but who wrote during the early Depression years, including Etta Blum, Peter Neagoe, Syd Salt, Moe Bragin, Tess Slesinger, and numerous others.

Pagany, like other little magazines, contributed to the growth, development, and recognition of many major writers. However, Johns did not hesitate to reject the work of noted writers when he believed the quality of the writing was inferior, including submissions by D.H. Lawrence, William Saroyan, and William Faulkner.

Johns's stubborn devotion to good literature, his search for lively and expressive writing, and his refusal to be bound by commercial pressure, made Pagany a publication of lasting value and one of the most important little magazines published during the early years of the Depression. However, by 1932 Johns had incurred substantial debt in his publishing venture. Only twelve issues of Pagany were published before the lack of funds forced Johns to cease publication in February 1933.

In 1934 Johns married Veronica Parker, with whom he collaborated on a series of mystery novels, the first of which was Hush Gabriel. Johns also began experimenting with photography and composing photo-essays. His photographs appeared in Coronet, U.S. Camera, and various weekly journals; as well as in the "Exhibition of Contemporary American Industrial Art" held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1940.

By the 1960s Johns had made his home in Cuttingsville, Vermont, where he continued his writing, photography, and work in horticulture, specializing in hybridizing flowers.

In 1969 Johns assisted Stephen A. Halpert in writing A Return to Pagany, which documents the development of Pagany, through selections from Johns's correspondence and from works published in Pagany, complemented by a chronological narrative concerning the history of Pagany.

Richard Johns died on June 17, 1970.

Halpert, Stephen (ed.) with Richard Johns. A Return to Pagany: the history, correspondence, and selections from a little magazine 1929-1932. Boston: Beacon Press, 1969.