[1] From its inception in 1969, through 2008, New Literary History was under the editorship of its founder, Ralph Cohen.

New Literary History was established as part of the Sesquicentennial Celebration of the University of Virginia in 1969 by Ralph Cohen.

According to Wolfgang Iser, It was Ralph Cohen's editorial policy to raise issues that were not in the orbit of the discipline when the journal was launched, such as: What is Literature, History, Interpretation, Criticism, and to what extent does the exploration of these issues require a theoretical approach?

Thus basic presuppositions and assumptions of the study of literature came under close scrutiny which, in turn, had to be contextualized in order to trace the provenance of what has been posited in the theoretical approaches concerned.

[4]The journal was characterized by "an attempt to bring Anglo-American criticism into a close interrelationship with Continental approaches to literature and culture; it gave New Literary History a unique profile.