[1] Edited by Craig Taylor, Five Dials features short fiction, essays, letters, poetry, reporting from around the world (humbly tagged “Currentish Events”) and illustrations.

Notable contributors include famous authors living and deceased such as Raymond Chandler, Noam Chomsky, Alain De Botton, Zadie Smith, Dave Eggers, Jonathan Safran Foer, Hari Kunzru, J. M. G. Le Clézio, Deborah Levy and Susan Sontag, but the magazine also showcases work from lesser-known journalists, unpublished creative thinkers and even former nuns.

[3] Since the magazine launched in 2008 there have been several themed issues of Five Dials, focusing on a variety of topics including Broken Britain, obscenity, memoir, the late David Foster Wallace and the American elections.

Five Dials is one of several magazines that have been credited with the rebirth of the literary journal, albeit in a slightly different form to publications such as the London Review of Books.

[12] Five Dials continues to grow in profile and is still run by Craig Taylor, who is assisted by Hamish Hamilton staff and a team of volunteers in the making of the magazine.