A major trend in U. S. magazine publishing used to be aping the British. Lately, rapid and extraordinary changes in U. S. magazines have helped reverse the trend. Last year's two most noteworthy new British magazines were striking imitations of TIME, called Cavalcade and News Review. This month, the British reading and picture-looking public was handed two more copies of recent U. S. magazine hits. One was Coronet-sized, Esquire-angled Lilliput, "The Pocket Magazine for everyone." The other was a frank imitation of the New Yorker christened Night and Day. Both were printed on smooth paper, sold for sixpence (12¢). Lilliput contains ten articles (Sam Goldwyn, Upton Sinclair), ten stories (Liam 0'Flaherty, Sacha Guitry), ten cartoons ("I think there's been a mistake, you've sent a gout up to maternity"), 40 photographs (John D. Rockefeller Sr., nudes, still life, Mussolini holding his nose), seven color plates (Hogarth's The Graham Children, Correggio's Venus, Mercury and Cupid). Editor is Hungarian-born Stefan Lorant, capable but not popular in Fleet Street. He first made a name on the Münchner Illustrierte Presse, was tossed into jail for six months when Hitler came to power, wrote a book about it (I was Hitler's Prisoner), then built up Weekly Illustrated for Odhams Press Ltd. An indicated 150,000 customers stepped up to buy the first (July) issue, printed and distributed by the big firm of W. H. Smith & Son Ltd.
Night and Day was issued as a weekly from freshly painted (cream interior, light-blue and black exterior) offices near London's Coliseum Theatre by the firm of Chatto & Windus under the editorial direction of five bright young men. Chief of these is John Hugo Edgar Marks, Borneo-born, Cambridge-educated, former film critic of the New Statesman and Nation. Biggest name among Night and Day contributors is Author Evelyn Waugh, as book critic.