Seward Bishop Collins (April 22, 1899 – December 8, 1952) graduated from Princeton University and entered New York's literary life in 1926 as a bon vivant. He knew many literary giants of his day, had an affair with Dorothy Parker, and amassed a large collection of erotica. His bookstore, The American Review Bookshop, was at 231 West 58th Street in New York. It carried many journals, broadsheets, and newsletters that supported nationalist and fascist causes in Europe and Asia. In 1936, he married Dorothea Brande. A man of independent wealth, Collins published two literary journals: The Bookman (1927 - 1933) and The American Review (1933 - 1937). April 22 is the 112th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (113th in leap years). ... 1899 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... December 8 is the 342nd day (343rd in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1952 (MCMLII) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Princeton University, located in Princeton, New Jersey, is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States. ... 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Dorothy Parker (also known as Dot or Dottie) was born Dorothy Rothschild in the West End district of Long Branch, New Jersey, on August 22, 1893. ... Nationalism is an ideology that creates and sustains a nation as a concept of a common identity for groups of humans. ... Fascism (in Italian, fascismo), capitalized, was the authoritarian political movement which ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. ... Europe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... World map showing Asia (geographically) Asia is the central and eastern part of Eurasia, and the worlds largest continent. ... Dorothea Brande (1893-1948) was a well respected writer and editor in New York. ... The Bookman was a book review owned by the George H. Doran company of New York, and edited by Arthur Bartlett Maurice (1873-1946) from 1899 to 1916 , and John Chipman Farrar (1896 - 1974). ... The American Review has been the name of more than one publication. ...

By 1928 Collins was infatuated with the writings of prominent humanists of his day, including Paul Elmer More and Irving Babbitt. Politically, he moved from left-liberalism in the early 1920s to fascist by the end of that decade. In the American Review, he sought to develop an American form of fascism and praised Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler in an article titled "Monarch as Alternative," which appeared in the first issue in 1933. In that essay, Collins attacked both capitalism and communism and heralded the "New Monarch," who would champion the common good over and against the machinations of capitalists and communists. His praise of Hitler was grounded in his belief that Hitler's rise to power that year heralded the end of the communist threat, as is illustrated by this excerpt: 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Humanism is a system of thought that defines a socio-political doctrine (-ism) whose bounds exceed those of locally developed cultures, to include all of humanity and all issues common to human beings. ... Paul Elmer More (December 12, 1864 – March 9, 1937) was an American critic and essayist. ... Irving Babbitt (1865–1933) was an American academic and literary critic, noted for his founding role in a movement that became known as the New Humanism, a significant influence on literary discussion and conservative thought in the period 1910 to 1930. ... Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (Predappio near Forlì, July 29, 1883 – Giulino di Mezzegra near Como, April 28, 1945) led Italy from 1922 to 1943. ... Hitler redirects here. ... 1933 (MCMXXXIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Capitalism The page is about the economic system. ... Communism refers to a theoretical system of social organization and a political movement based on common ownership of the means of production. ...

"One would gather from the fantastic lack of proportion of our press -- not to say its gullibility and sensationalism -- that the most important aspect of the German revolution was the hardships suffered by Jews under the new regime. Even if the absurd atrocity stories were all true, the fact would be almost negligible beside an event that shouts aloud in spite of the journalistic silence: the victory of Hitler signifies the end of the Communist threat, forever. Wherever Communism grows strong enough to make a Communist revolution a danger, it will be crushed by a Fascist revolution."

The American Review ran articles by many leading literary critics of the day, including the Southern Agrarians, who were happy to find a publisher for their anti-modern essays. Several of them came to regret their relationship with Collins, however, after his views became better known through a 1936 interview that he granted to Grace Lumpkin in the pro-communist periodical FIGHT against War and Fascism. Therein he stated: "I am a fascist. I admire Hitler and Mussolini very much. They have done great things for their countries." When Lumpkin objected to Hitler's persecution of the Jews, Collins replied: "It is not persecution. The Jews make trouble. It is necessary to segregate them." Allen Tate wrote a rebuttal of fascism for The New Republic in an effort to repair the Southern Agrarians' reputations. Nevertheless, Tate remained in contact with Collins and continued to publish in The American Review until it ceased publication in 1937. The Southern Agrarians or Vanderbilt Agrarians were a group of 12 American Traditionalist writers and poets from the Southern United States who joined together to publish the Agrarian manifesto, a collection of essays entitled Ill Take My Stand in 1930. ... Grace Lumpkin (1892–1980) is best remembered as an author in the tradition of proletarian literature who eventually became an ardent anti-communist. ... FIGHT Against War and Fascism was an anti-fascist broadsheet published from 1934 until 1938 in the United States. ... John Orley Allen Tate (November 19, 1899 - February 9, 1979) was an American poet, essayist, and social commentator, and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, 1943 - 1944. ... Cover from the August 30th, 2004 issue. ...

In addition to featuring many essays by the Southern Agrarians and other critics of modernity, The American Review became the a vehicle for spreading the ideas associated with English Distributism, the supporters of which included G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc. Agrarians, Southern apologists, and distributists form part of the intellectual foundation for modern paleoconservatism, whose adherents view other forms of conservatism with suspicion. The Southern Agrarians or Vanderbilt Agrarians were a group of 12 American Traditionalist writers and poets from the Southern United States who joined together to publish the Agrarian manifesto, a collection of essays entitled Ill Take My Stand in 1930. ... Modernity is a term used to describe the condition of being Modern. Since the term Modern is used to describe a wide range of periods, modernity must be taken in context. ... Distributism, also known as distributionism and distributivism, is an anti-capitalist economic philosophy formulated by such Catholic thinkers as G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc to apply the principles of social justice theoretically articulated by the Roman Catholic Church. ... For the town of Chesterton in Cambridgeshire, see Chesterton (Cambridge). ... Photograph of Belloc Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (July 27, 1870 - July 16, 1953) was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. ... Agrarianism is a social and political philosophy. ... Paleoconservatism (sometimes shortened to paleo or paleocon when the context is clear) refers to a branch of American conservative thought that is often called Old Right. ... Conservatism is any of a number of political philosophies supporting traditional values or an established social order. ...

Collins and his wife, who claimed to be a spiritual medium, were actively involved with psychic phenomena during the 1930s. Their circle of friends included W.H. Salter, Theodore Besterman, and Mrs. Henry Sidgwick, all of whom were affiliated with the Society for Psychical Research in London. The word medium (from Latin, in which it means, the one in the middle) can have different meanings in different contexts. ... Parapsychology is the study of the evidence involving phenomena where a person seems to affect or to gain information about something through a means not currently explainable within the framework of mainstream, conventional science. ... The Society for Psychical Research was founded in 1882 by three dons of Trinity College, Cambridge (including Frederic William Henry Myers) because of their interest in spiritualism. ...

Today Collins is remembered primarily as a fascist editor and publisher who detested both capitalism and communism and counted many pre-War writers as his friends or colleagues. His essay "Monarch as Alternative," mentioned above, appears in Conservatism in America Since 1930, a collection of essays by conservative writers published by New York University Press in 2003. Conservatism or political conservatism is any of several historically related political philosophies or political ideologies. ...

A recent biography of Collins, Michael Jay Tucker’s And Then They Loved Him: Seward Collins And the Chimera of an American Fascism, argues that he was never a “real” fascist. This book, which is based on Collins’ actual papers and letters (as well as his FBI file), argues that Collins was in fact a Distributist, i.e., a follower of Chesterton and Belloc, who inexplicably called Agrarianism “fascism.” Indeed, the book concludes that Collins then became a kind of scapegoat after 1941 when many other members of the American social and intellectual elites were eager to distract attention from their own flirtations with fascism in the 1920s and 1930s.

External links

• And Then They Loved Him: Seward Collins And the Chimera of an American Fascism