The Realist was a short lived monthly British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 magazine first published in March 1929 which brought together many intellectuals from that era. It was dedicated to Scientific Humanism

Secular humanism

Secular Humanism, alternatively known as Humanism , is a secular philosophy that embraces human reason, ethics, justice, and the search for human fulfillment...

 and carried a distinctive pale orange cover. It closed in January 1930 a victim of the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

.

It was founded in 1928 by the political scientist George Catlin

George Catlin (political scientist)

Sir George Edward Gordon Catlin was an English political scientist and philosopher. A strong proponent of Anglo-America cooperation, he worked for many years as a professor at Cornell University and other universities and colleges in the United States and Canada. He preached the use of a natural...

 and Major A. G. Church, then assistant editor of Nature

Nature (journal)

Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...

, who became its editor. It was backed by Lord Melchett

Henry Mond, 2nd Baron Melchett

Henry Ludwig Mond, 2nd Baron Melchett was a British politician, industrialist and financier.-Early life and education:...

 and published by Macmillan

Macmillan Publishers

Macmillan Publishers Ltd, also known as The Macmillan Group, is a privately held international publishing company owned by Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. It has offices in 41 countries worldwide and operates in more than thirty others.-History:...

. The literary editor was the then little known philosopher Gerald Heard

Gerald Heard

Henry Fitzgerald Heard commonly called Gerald Heard was an historian, science writer, educator, and philosopher. He wrote many articles and over 35 books....

.

Contributors included, Arnold Bennett

Arnold Bennett

- Early life :Bennett was born in a modest house in Hanley in the Potteries district of Staffordshire. Hanley is one of a conurbation of six towns which joined together at the beginning of the twentieth century as Stoke-on-Trent. Enoch Bennett, his father, qualified as a solicitor in 1876, and the...

, H.G. Wells, Sir Richard Gregory, J. B. S. Haldane

J. B. S. Haldane

John Burdon Sanderson Haldane FRS , known as Jack , was a British-born geneticist and evolutionary biologist. A staunch Marxist, he was critical of Britain's role in the Suez Crisis, and chose to leave Oxford and moved to India and became an Indian citizen...

, Bronisław Malinowski, Herbert Read

Herbert Read

Sir Herbert Edward Read, DSO, MC was an English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art. He was one of the earliest English writers to take notice of existentialism, and was strongly influenced by proto-existentialist thinker Max Stirner....

, Julian Huxley

Julian Huxley

Sir Julian Sorell Huxley FRS was an English evolutionary biologist, humanist and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century evolutionary synthesis...

, Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley

Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel...

, Sir Frank Baines

Frank Baines

Sir Frank Baines, KCVO, CBE, FRIBA was at one time the architect heading Her Majesty's Office of Works.His most famous work was Thames House and its neighbour Imperial Chemical House in London, England...

, H.J. Laski

Harold Laski

Harold Joseph Laski was a British Marxist, political theorist, economist, author, and lecturer, who served as the chairman of the Labour Party during 1945-1946, and was a professor at the LSE from 1926 to 1950....

 and Rebecca West

Rebecca West

Cicely Isabel Fairfield , known by her pen name Rebecca West, or Dame Rebecca West, DBE was an English author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. A prolific, protean author who wrote in many genres, West was committed to feminist and liberal principles and was one of the foremost public...

.

Its editorial meetings were held at the London restaurant, Kettners.

The founders hoped to find a market for an intellectual monthly along similar lines to the American Harper's Magazine

Harper's Magazine

Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...

.