The Fall 2008 issue of The Paris Review includes an excerpt from the oral biography of George Plimpton, who edited the magazine for its first half century.

Since Plimpton is no longer around to be interviewed the way Peter Matthiessen and others were, he’s represented with quotes from his diary, such as this passage in which he wrote about the search for a title during the magazine’s founding 55 years ago:

I know The Paris Review is a sensible and safe title. It might not sell a million copies but it’s safe. It has snob appeal. Paris—God what that connotes everywhere, and its life and its literature, and its eccentricities. But not quite enough for them. Merde, Phusct, Venture, MS, Manuscript, Counterpoint, Baccarat, all these evocative names which symbolize countless magazines with similar names which have failed in one respect for that every reason—zero, Blast, Transition (although that a fine one), Wake, etc. I said I’d never read a literary magazine of any sort with a one name supposedly striking title which hadn’t folded within a year or so. “Time, Life, Fortune?” asked du Bois. Well, he may be right but we shall see. The title can certainly ruin it. We’re all thinking about it. I hope if there’s a better one and a safer one than The Paris Review I can open my mind to it.

Considering some of those alternatives, I’m glad that his mind didn’t get that open.