"rave" in Variety or earlier?

[Stephen Goranson]

Quoting Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>:

> I know there are some _Variety_ fans here, so I thought I'd
> ask if anyone can find an example of _rave_ 'enthusiastic
> review' in that periodical (or, for that matter, any other)
> before 1926.  OED's earliest example is from the _American
> Mercury_ in December 1926, referring to _rave_ as a _Variety_
> coinage, but an earlier effort was unable to find an example
> in _Variety_ itself.
>
> Has anyone done any work on this? I thought we might have
> discussed it at some point but there's nothing I can see in
> the archives.
>
> Jesse Sheidlower
> OED

This is not a directly-relevant response for the noun, but in case it's
useful,
Google Books gives several pre-1923 uses of "critics raved" (not in OED?)
including:

1883 It was a slack time, when actors who were not in great demand could meet
together and talk shop, and run down those of whom the critics raved
too madly.
... (Women are strange, and other stories By Frederick William Robinson p.35)

Stephen Goranson
http://www.duke.edu/~goranson

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