SOURCE: "Mr. W. L. as Leader of the Great London Vortex" and "Some Specimen Pages of Blast No. 1 (June 20, 1914)," in Blasting and Bombardiering, 1937. Reprinted by Calder and Boyars, 1967, pp. 32-45.

In the following excerpt, Lewis discusses his involvement in the Vorticist movement and his editorship of Blast.

At some time during the six months that preceded the declaration of war, very suddenly, from a position of relative obscurity, I became extremely well-known. Roughly this coincided with the publication of Blast. I can remember no specific morning upon which I woke and found that this had happened. But by August 1914 no newspaper was complete without news about 'vorticism' and its arch-exponent Mr. Lewis.

As chef de bande of the Vorticists I cut a figure in London not unlike that of Degrelle to-day in Brussels. There were no politics then. There was no Rexist Party or suchlike. Instead there was...