Who were the pioneers who first thought of radio as an art form, who debated how to write and perform for radio, who discussed radio’s social and political dimensions? Spanning from 1924 to 1938, this anthology brings together long-forgotten texts on sound, listening and writing by radio enthusiasts, journalists, actors, radio producers and literary authors who conceptualised the new radio aesthetic between the two world wars and reflected on radio’s future, as a medium requiring the invention of a new literature, new modes of performance and new ways of listening. The texts included here, drawn from British, French, German and Italian radio cultures, are representative of important pan-European debates about radio’s potential at a critical moment in its history. Together, they shed light on ideas that shaped not only the emergence of radio drama, sound art and reportage, but radio as we know it today.

It’s almost impossible to overstate the amount of labor that has gone into the assembling of Emilie Morin’s valuable new anthology, Early Radio[...] all of these have produced an anthology unprecedented in its scope, one that will be essential for any scholar of modernist radio studies. -- Debra Rae Cohen, University of South Carolina * Modernism/modernity *
Early Radio works best as an evocative and somewhat haunting time capsule for the anxieties, enthusiasm and the boundless optimism surrounding the relatively young technology and artistic medium of radio broadcasting during the interwar period, specifically between 1924 and 1938. [...] therein lies Early Radio’s novelty as an invaluable repository, as well as a benchmark for further work along similar lines. No other English-language anthology on the radio deals with the same time period in quite the same manner, or with the express intent of focusing on writings that might otherwise have slipped through the cracks of history. -- Shantam Goyal, University at Buffalo * Media History *
The publication of this anthology is a pivotal event in the field of radio studies. With its sound historical grounding, canny selection of archival texts, superb editorial apparatus, and intellectually crisp introduction, Early Radio sets the standard against which other such collections will be measured. The scholarship in the volume is of the highest order. -- Damien Keane, State University of New York at Buffalo
This brilliant collection brings early radio history to life in the words of contemporaries fascinated by a revolutionary new medium and its experimental aesthetics. Making these international primary sources available in translation provides a rich resource for global and comparative studies of communication in the early twentieth century. It also offers a vital historical perspective on current debates about 'new media'. -- Professor Kate Lacey, University of Sussex

Emilie Morin is Professor of Modern Literature at the University of York, UK. Her interests revolve around transnational modernisms, forms of political writing, literatures of exile and migration, and the intersections between literature and technology. Her most recent monograph is Beckett’s Political Imagination (2017). Emilie Morin is Professor of Modern Literature at the University of York, UK. Her interests revolve around transnational modernisms, forms of political writing, literatures of exile and migration, and the intersections between literature and technology. Her most recent monograph is Beckett’s Political Imagination (2017). Marielle Sutherland is a freelance translator (German to English). Her key areas are contemporary literature, arts and humanities. Her recent translations include Rainer Maria Rilke’s Selected Poems, with Susan Ranson (2011), Bauhaus Architecture 1919-1933, by Hans Engels (2018), and Rulantica: Hidden Island, by Manuela Hanauer (2021). Nicoletta Asciuto is Lecturer in Modern Literature at the University of York, UK. A passionate linguist with knowledge of ten languages, she specialises in comparative literature, and has particular interests in modernism and technology. She is currently completing a monograph entitled Brilliant Modernism: Cultures of Light and Modernist Poetry, 1909-1930.