In this space in October 2002, we noted the death at ninety-four
of our friend William Phillips, the founding co-editor (with
Philip Rahv) of Partisan Review. In its great period, in the
1940s and 1950s, Partisan Review was a catalyzing force in American
cultural and political debate. Throughout its history, largely
because of Mr. Phillips’s editorial guidance, it was a home to
candid and independent cultural criticism. It was recently
announced that the current issue of PR—which features
recollections of William Phillips by many of his former
colleagues, friends, and admirers—will also be the magazine’s
last issue. The editors of The New Criterion wish to salute
William Phillips’s memory and the enlivening example of the
magazine over which he presided with beneficent intelligence for
more than five decades.