Holley Cantine

Holley R. Cantine Jr.^[1] was born on February 14, 1916,^[2] and raised in Woodstock, New York. He came from a wealthy family.^[3] His father owned a paper-coating business in Saugerties and his mother was a painter.^[4] Cantine's maternal grandfather served as the first president of Panama and later became an ambassador for the United States. Woodstock was a growing, left-wing, artistic community during the time he was raised there.^[3] Cantine studied anthropology at Swarthmore College and Columbia University but left before finishing his doctoral dissertation to pursue a self-sufficient life in the woods.^[3]

Cantine edited the first issue of Retort, a journal of art and social philosophy, with Dorothy Paul in June 1942 from their small, self-built cabin in Bearsville, New York, near the town where he was raised.^[5][3] Cantine published political writings alongside political poetry and fiction. Retort was an early publisher of writers Kenneth Patchen, Saul Bellow, and Robert Duncan.^[3] By 1947, Cantine was editing alongside the anarchist poet Dachine Rainer and Retort has become "An Anarchist Quarterly".^[5] Cantine set, printed, and bound the pages by hand.^[3] The pair were jailed during World War II as conscientious objectors. They subsequently edited and published a collection of writings from conscientious objectors, Prison Etiquette, in 1950.^[6] Retort ceased publication in 1951.^[4]

He also wrote a weekly periodical, The Wasp, which took antagonistic aim at Woodstock tourists ("trudgers") and the town's commercialization.^[7] His 1959 science fiction short story, "Double Double Toil and Trouble", received several awards. Cantine also translated Volin's The Unknown Revolution from French and his own Second Chance: A Story.^[6]

Cantine died on January 2, 1977,^[2] in a house fire in Woodstock.^[8]