X, A Quarterly Review, often referred to as X magazine, was a British review of literature and the arts published in London which ran for seven issues between 1959 and 1962. It was co-founded and co-edited by Patrick Swift and David Wright. Authors and artists Among the authors and artists included in X are: Dannie Abse, Craigie Aitchison, Michael Andrews, Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon, George Barker, Samuel Beckett, David Bomberg, Yves Bonnefoy, Anthony Cronin, René Daumal, Lucian Freud, David Gascoyne, Ghika, Alberto Giacometti, Robert Graves, John Heath-Stubbs, Aidan Higgins, Geoffrey Hill, Philippe Jaccottet, Patrick Kavanagh, Oskar Kokoschka, Malcolm Lowry, Hugh MacDiarmid, Charles Marowitz, Phillip Martin artist, André Masson, John McGahern, O. V. de L. Milosz, Dom Moraes, Robert Nye, Boris Pasternak, Robert Pinget, Ezra Pound, Malcolm Quantrill, Michel Saint-Denis, Martin Seymour-Smith, C. H. Sisson, Stevie Smith, Jules Supervielle, Nathaniel Tarn, and Vernon Watkins. Aims and objectives From the foreword to X: Volume I, Numbers 1-4 (Barrie & Rockliff 1961): "...the real thing, the productions of the individual vision... If two things are granted, and they are not often denied, (i) that the productions of the true artist are vital to a healthy society, (ii) that even in the best societies there is the constant risk that these very things will wither and die for want of the minimum support, then the collection of writing, poetry, and art brought together here needs no further apology... There is at the heart of any interesting idea of art or poetry an anarchic volatile centre – a sort of living principle – which will not tolerate categoric definition so that even the wildest of surrealist or anti-art proclamations militate against the sort of freedom the artist values. This does not mean that we exist to initiate a drift from principle and clear proposition. It means that only propositions sufficiently accurate to include the necessary complexity of any interesting artistic viewpoint are good enough for us. And that any attitude based upon the notion that there exists a total and rational explanation for the artistic impulse and activity is for us the enemy of real poetry. And so it is that throughout all the critical articles published in this journal will be found a questioning and sceptical curiosity about the prevailing and fashionable conceptions which now dominate the scene... the real enemy now is probably confusion-general; complete intellectual confusion with a prevalent readiness to pounce