The London Mercury

The London Mercury 


A monthly magazine first published in 1919, The London Mercury sought to fill a gap in the market of literary magazines. The editor described The London Mercury as unique among other literary journals “as it combined the publication of creative writing, reviews of the contemporary literary output, publishing poetry, prose writing and full-length literary essays, and critical surveys of books.” The London Mercury sought to foster love and appreciation of the arts. 

As a major literary journal of the 20th century, The London Mercury published a variety of contemporary poets and short story authors, including Robert Frost, Virginia Woolf, Siegfried Sassoon, and of course William Butler Yeats. The London Mercury generally took a conservative political position.


Yeats published a number of poems in The London Mercury which were later published in The Tower:

“All Souls’ Night” (March 1921)

“Thoughts Upon the Present State of the World,” later titled “Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen” (November 1921)

“Meditations in Time of Civil War” (1923)

“Two Songs from the Old Countryman,” later titled “A Man Young and Old” (May 1927)

Among School Children” (August 1927)