The Saturday Book was an annual miscellany, published 1941-1975, reaching 34 volumes. It was edited initially by Leonard Russell

Leonard Russell (journalist)

Leonard Russell - English journalist and satirist, best known for editing Press Gang! Crazy World Chronicle , a collection of satiricle articles, supposedly real articles from British newspapers. Contributors included Russell, Cyril Connolly, Hilaire Belloc, Ronald Knox and A. G...

  and from 1952 by John Hadfield

John Hadfield

John Charles Heywood Hadfield, was a British author and publisher, best known for his novel Love on a Branch Line....

. A final compilation entitled The Best of the Saturday Book was published in 1981. The publisher throughout was Hutchinson

Hutchinson (publisher)

Hutchinson & Co. was an English book publisher, founded in 1887. The company merged with Century Publishing in 1985 to form Century Hutchinson, and was folded into the British Random House Group in 1989, where it remains as an imprint in the Cornerstone Publishing division...

.

The Saturday Book provided literary and artistic commentary about life in Great Britain

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...

 during the Second World War and ensuing decades. It covered a range of arts, including ballet

Ballet

Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...

 and music. Many writers contributed verse as well as essay

Essay

An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...

s.

Contributors

The many distinguished writers thereto included Edward Ardizzone

Edward Ardizzone

Edward Jeffrey Irving Ardizzone, CBE, RA was an English artist, writer and illustrator, chiefly of children's books.-Early life:...

, H. E. Bates

H. E. Bates

Herbert Ernest Bates, CBE , better known as H. E. Bates, was an English writer and author. His best-known works include Love for Lydia, The Darling Buds of May, and My Uncle Silas.-Early life:...

, Nicolas Bentley

Nicolas Bentley

Nicolas Clerihew Bentley was a British author and illustrator famous for his humorous cartoon drawings in books and magazines in the 1930s and 1940s...

, John Betjeman

John Betjeman

Sir John Betjeman, CBE was an English poet, writer and broadcaster who described himself in Who's Who as a "poet and hack".He was a founding member of the Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture...

, Graham Greene

Graham Greene

Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...

, Laurie Lee

Laurie Lee

Laurence Edward Alan "Laurie" Lee, MBE was an English poet, novelist, and screenwriter, raised in the village of Slad, and went to Marling School, Gloucestershire. His most famous work was an autobiographical trilogy which consisted of Cider with Rosie , As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning and...

, L. S. Lowry

L. S. Lowry

Laurence Stephen Lowry was an English artist born in Barrett Street, Stretford, Lancashire. Many of his drawings and paintings depict nearby Salford and surrounding areas, including Pendlebury, where he lived and worked for over 40 years at 117 Station Road , opposite St...

, Philip Larkin

Philip Larkin

Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL is widely regarded as one of the great English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century...

, John Masefield

John Masefield

John Edward Masefield, OM, was an English poet and writer, and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1930 until his death in 1967...

, H. J. Massingham

H. J. Massingham

Harold John Massingham was a prolific British writer on matters to do with the countryside and agriculture. He was also a published poet.-Life:...

, George Orwell

George Orwell

Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...

, J. B. Priestley

J. B. Priestley

John Boynton Priestley, OM , known as J. B. Priestley, was an English novelist, playwright and broadcaster. He published 26 novels, notably The Good Companions , as well as numerous dramas such as An Inspector Calls...

, L. T. C. Rolt

L. T. C. Rolt

Lionel Thomas Caswall Rolt was a prolific English writer and the biographer of major civil engineering figures including Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Thomas Telford...

, Siegfried Sassoon

Siegfried Sassoon

Siegfried Loraine Sassoon CBE MC was an English poet, author and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches, and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's...

, Evelyn Waugh

Evelyn Waugh

Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...

 and P. G. Wodehouse

P. G. Wodehouse

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE was an English humorist, whose body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, and numerous pieces of journalism. He enjoyed enormous popular success during a career that lasted more than seventy years and his many writings continue to be...

.

The series was profusely illustrated with photographs, woodcuts and line drawings, many specially commissioned.

Artists included Edward Ardizzone

Edward Ardizzone

Edward Jeffrey Irving Ardizzone, CBE, RA was an English artist, writer and illustrator, chiefly of children's books.-Early life:...

, Roland Emmett, L. S. Lowry

L. S. Lowry

Laurence Stephen Lowry was an English artist born in Barrett Street, Stretford, Lancashire. Many of his drawings and paintings depict nearby Salford and surrounding areas, including Pendlebury, where he lived and worked for over 40 years at 117 Station Road , opposite St...

, Lawrence Scarfe

Photographers included Bill Brandt

Bill Brandt

Bill Brandt was an influential British photographer and photojournalist known for his high-contrast images of British society and his distorted nudes and landscapes.-Career and life:...

, Cecil Beaton

Cecil Beaton

Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton, CBE was an English fashion and portrait photographer, diarist, painter, interior designer and an Academy Award-winning stage and costume designer for films and the theatre...

, Douglas Glass, Edwin Smith

Edwin Smith (photographer)

Edwin George Herbert Smith was an English photographer. He is best known for his distinctive vignettes of English gardens, landscapes, and architecture...

Wood engravers included Robert Gibbings

Robert Gibbings

Robert Gibbings was an Irish artist and author who was most noted for his work as a wood carver and engraver and for his books on travel and natural history.-Life:...

, George Maclay, Agnes Miller Parker

Agnes Miller Parker

Agnes Miller Parker was a Scottish engraver and illustrator.Halsby and Harris, in The Dictionary of Scottish Painters suggest that Parker's early paintings, as well as those of her husband, reflect the short-lived group of artists known as Vorticists, active in London in the 1920s. The main body...

.

Edwin Smith

Edwin Smith (photographer)

Edwin George Herbert Smith was an English photographer. He is best known for his distinctive vignettes of English gardens, landscapes, and architecture...

 and Olive Cook wrote illustrated sections concerning collecting and ephemera.

George Orwell

George Orwell

Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...

's essay 'Benefit of Clergy' in the volume for 1944 was suppressed on grounds of obscenity, though its title remains in the table of contents.
http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/essay/CriticalEssays/salvadordali.html