X was a quarterly review of literature and the arts published in seven volumes from 1959 to 1962. Edited by the poet David Wright and the painter Patrick Swift, it published work by then unknown writers such as C.H.Sisson, as well as by established figures including Ezra Pound, Stevie Smith, Samuel Beckett, Robert Graves and Geoffrey Hill. It printed paintings by then little-known artists Michael Andrews, David Bomberg, Lucien Freud and Francis Bacon. This anthology follows in the tradition of a number of other successful anthologies that came out towards the end of 1985, including Night and Day, The Penguin New Writing 1940-1950,and Heinemann's The New Review anthology. The editor has prepared a selection of writings and illustrations from the magazine.