The Sunwise Turn
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Bookstore, Publishing |
| Founded | 1916 |
| Founder | Madge Jenison, Mary Horgan Mowbray-Clarke |
| Defunct | 1927 |
| Fate | Sold to Doubleday, Page & Co. |
| Headquarters | New York City , United States |
Key people | Madge Jenison, Mary Horgan Mowbray-Clarke, Peggy Guggenheim (intern) |
| Products | Books, illustrated poetry broadsides, art exhibitions |
The Sunwise Turn, A Modern Bookshop, was a bookshop located in New York City that also served as a literary salon and meeting spot for notable personalities such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Alfred Kreymborg, Maxwell Bodenheim, Peggy Guggenheim (who worked there as an intern in 1920), Theodore Dreiser, Robert Frost, Harold Loeb, and John Dos Passos. Established in 1916 by Madge Jenison and Mary Horgan Mowbray-Clarke, the shop operated until 1927 and was one of the earliest American bookstores owned and managed by women. The archives containing documents related to the founders and the bookstore are preserved at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
The bookstore combined literary sales with art exhibitions; Guggenheim acknowledged it as a key influence on her enthusiasm for art collecting.
Publishing history
In addition to hosting exhibitions and performances, The Sunwise Turn produced five illustrated poetry broadsides along with no fewer than ten books between 1916 and 1923.
Its first publishing projects were the broadsides released in 1916, which paired poets with visual artists:
- "Ballads for Sale" by Amy Lowell, illustrated by Walt Kuhn
- "The Scientist" by Gladys Cromwell, illustrated by John Frederick Mowbray-Clarke
- "Cow of Curses" by Amy Murray, featuring her own artwork
- "The Bird Seller Praises his Bird of Paradise" by Padraic Colum, illustrated by Herbert Crowley
- "Chariots" by Witter Bynner, illustrated by Howard Coluzzi
Also in 1916, the bookstore published "A Night at an Inn" by Lord Dunsany as part of the "Neighborhood Playhouse Plays No. 1" series, produced in partnership with the Neighborhood Playhouse.
Notably, The Sunwise Turn was a pioneer in bringing contemporary Indian literature to American readers through two works by Ananda Coomaraswamy: The Dance of Siva: Fourteen Indian Essays and Prayers and Epigrams.
Locations
Initially situated at 2 East 31st Street, the bookstore relocated in 1919 to the Yale Club building at 51 East 44th Street, where it remained until closing in 1927. Around 1919 or 1920, Mowbray-Clarke acquired Jenison’s share of the business with assistance from Harold and Marjorie Content Loeb. When financial difficulties led to insolvency in 1927, Mowbray-Clarke sold both the bookstore and its inventory to Doubleday, Page & Co. for $5,000 (~$ in ).