Edgell Rickword served in the Artists Rifles in World War I and returned to England ripe for a change. One of the sharpest critical minds of the century, he edited the influential Calendar of Modern Letters. In the 1930's he became a declared radical and a communist, helping to establish Left review and visiting Spain during the Civil War. His collaboration with leading radicals at the time make his story a history of the growth of socialist cultural thought and action in Britain.