Skip to content

On Pelf

A screen shot from UrbanDictionary.com
A screen shot from UrbanDictionary.com

We’re very pleased to launch our new issue online today, no. 26, if you can believe it. It’s entitled “Sickness and Pelf,” and inside you’ll find multitudinous tales of woe and profit from the culture of medicine in America.

If you’re curious: the word pelf, incidentally, means dirty money—as in Edwin Muir’s “No pride but pride of pelf,” which isn’t even the bitterest line from his great poem about industrial culture, “Scotland 1941.” Let’s bring back pelf. We’re pretty sure you can find your own usage.