Life — July 21, 1921 — page 32: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

How Metropolitan Chooses its Fiction Some one referred to Metropolitan’s stories as “real life fic- tion.” We like that description. It describes best our aims. Through fine fiction and a strong purpose in national politics Metropolitan has endeavored to attract the largest possible number of intelligent readers. We believe this policy makes _the firmest basis for a general magazine. We believe almost as great an influence can be exerted by our fiction as by our authoritative articles, Fiction’s Purpose Good fiction ought to do two things—it ought to entertain, also it ought to contain a contribution to life that will stay with you after you have laid the magazine aside. To change human lives by telling a story is sometimes easier than by preaching a sermon. We seldom get out of ourselves and see ourselves as we are. But fiction which is “living at the expense of others” shows us others’ lives—and we make comparisons with our own and see ourselves as we are. Famous Contributors There is hardly a great writer in the world who has not appeared in the Metropolitan. Kipling, Galsworthy, Maurice Hewlett, Joseph Conrad, John Masefield, Sir Gilbert Parker, Richard Harding Davis, Gouverneur Morris, Larry Evans, Compton MacKenzie, Henry Kitchell Webster, Rupert Hughes and Booth Tarkington are only a few of the names which make our list of contributors read like the hall of fame. In dealing with each one of these contributors our policy has been to ask from them the sincerest and most human work; no sex stuff, no jazz novels; none of the tommyrot about high life, the wicked vices of the rich and the saintly virtues of the poor, which can be dished up in such a way as to sell magazines very easily, has found its way into the Metropolitan. We never asked our writers to produce that sort of fiction. If you don’t ask them, or to put it more explicitly, if you don’t contract with them for so much a word to write that kind of twaddle, then they don’t do it, because certainly none of them want to. The Helping Hand It is also a part of our history that we have held out a very helping hand to young and unknown writers. Some of the best things we print come from unknown writers. We don't believe in the contract system, we don’t believe in tying up a writer for so many stories or so many novels a year. We take our fiction where we find it because we believe in it, not because we have ordered it and have got to pay for it and publish it whether we like it or not. How to get it The August issue of Metropolitan is always the big fiction magazine of Summer. Vacation time is the time for concen- trated enjoyment. We believe the ten big fiction features in August Metropolitan will give you the maximum of live, en- tertaining, worth-while fiction. 25 cts. per copy at your newsstand. $3.00 per year. Metropolitan H. J. WHIGHAM, Publisher 432 Fourth Avenue New York City To Learn to Grasp the Psychic Moment Read fe Ae Its fun and sanity teach one the proper time even to hit a tearing tiger on the nose. The radical orator raged and thundered, but just at his climax, one sane and healthy little laugh brought him to an inglorious close. Try a subscription yourself for a year or Obey That Impulse, and for a trial trip avail yourself of our Special Offer Enclosed find One Dollar (Canadian $1.20, Foreign $1.40). Send Lire for three months—twelve issues—to Open only to new subscribers; no subscriptions renewed . at this rate. LIFE, 598 Madison Avenue, New York One Year $5 Canadian $5.80 Foreign $6.60 50 Ge ssn Lb Mrs. MacTavish: Do you think my husband will ever make a golfer? “Pro”: I think so. He has enough Scotch in him. Mrs. MacTavish: What! And he told me he hadn’t had a drink in a year. A peal howe that Strat guilt; good cura fessic fourt big a some incid pres the 1 to po Q nival Mat Silvir the i appe: the f atten earn on i anyt! sequi in f: scenc lobby pare ours comicbooks.com