Margaret Carolyn Anderson was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on November 24, 1886, the
eldest of three daughters of Arthur Aubrey and Jessie (Shortridge) Anderson. She graduated
from high school in Anderson, Indiana in 1903, and then entered a two-year junior
preparatory class at Western College in Miami, Ohio. She left Western in 1906, at the end of
her freshman year, to pursue a career as a pianist. In the fall of 1908 she left home for
Chicago, accompanied by her sister Lois.
Anderson began writing book reviews for a religious weekly, The
Continent , shortly after her arrival in Chicago. Later she joined the staff of
Francis F. Browne's magazine, The Dial. By 1913 she was a
book critic for the Chicago Evening Post. Having become bored
with her work at the Post, she decided to edit her own
magazine, the Little Review.
The magazine was launched as a monthly in March 1914. Anderson's main goal was to publish
creative criticism. The first issue featured praise of Nietzsche, feminism, and
psychoanalysis, along with new works by the Chicago poets Arthur Davidson Ficke and Eunice
Tietjens. For the next two years Anderson published works by Imagist poets and also featured
the political writings of such anarchists as Emma Goldman.
In 1916 Jane Heap (1887-1964) joined the staff of the Little
Review. Heap was a painter who had graduated from the School of the Art Institute
of Chicago. After her arrival the magazine began using modern typographical designs and
publishing reproductions of contemporary artists' works.
In 1917 Anderson and Heap moved the Little Review to New
York. During the next few years the magazine increased its commitment to literary
experiment, featuring the works of T.S. Eliot, Dorothy Richardson and James Joyce. Ezra
Pound acted as the magazine's foreign editor from 1917 to 1919. In that capacity he
encouraged many British and European writers to submit their works to Anderson and Heap for
publication in theLittle Review. By 1921, as funds grew
increasingly sparse, the magazine began publishing quarterly. Issues, appeared sporadically
until 1926, when publication was suspended. In 1929, one final issue was published, in
Paris.
In 1922 Anderson moved to Paris. The following year she turned over the editorship of
theLittle Review to Jane Heap. Also in 1923 Anderson moved
to Le Cannet (on the French Riviera) to live with the French singer Georgette Leblanc. She
published the first volume of her autobiography seven years later. She wrote and studied
piano in Le Cannet until Leblanc's death in 1941.
At Jane Heap's urging, Anderson studied under the philosopher/spiritual master George I.
Gurdjieff, attending his lectures at Fontainebleau-Avon in 1924. Anderson wrote a book about
the experience, The Unknowable Gurdjieff, and dedicated it to
Jane Heap.
In 1942 Anderson returned to the United States, where she met Dorothy Caruso, widow of the
singer Enrico Caruso. They lived together until Caruso's death in 1955. During that time
Anderson published the second volume of her autobiography. Anderson returned to Le Cannet
after Caruso's death. There she published the last volume of her autobiography, dedicating
it to her friend and critic, the novelist Solita Solano. Anderson lived out the remainder of
her years in Le Cannet, writing and listening to music, until a serious bout with emphysema
forced her to enter the Clinique Beausoleil in Cannes. She died there of heart failure in
1973. She was buried beside Georgette Leblanc in the Notre Dame des Agnes Cemetery.
