[1] Published in December 1908, the first issue contained original work by Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Joseph Conrad, John Galsworthy, W. H. Hudson, R. B. Cunninghame Graham and H. G. Wells.

Hueffer maintained this level of quality in subsequent issues he edited, publishing the early work of Ezra Pound, D. H. Lawrence and Wyndham Lewis.

Issued as a monthly magazine of approximately 175 pages and sold for half a crown, The English Review did not exceed a circulation of 1,000 during Hueffer's editorship.

In addition to continuing to print works by Conrad, Lawrence, Graham and Wells, authors such as Sherwood Anderson, Anton Chekhov, Hermann Hesse, Aldous Huxley, Katherine Mansfield, Bertrand Russell, G. B. Shaw, Ivan Turgenev and William Butler Yeats now appeared in the magazine's pages.

Harrison courted controversy by challenging attitudes towards sexuality when he published works by authors such as Frank Harris, leading to condemnation in the pages of other journals.