<p align="left">This study investigates the differences between literary reviewing in the Dutch newspapers before and after the literary magazine <em>Merlyn</em>. The reason to do so is the claim of many scholars that <em>Merlyn </em>influenced literary reviewing in the Netherlands, more specifically the kind of value judgments literary critics make. To find out whether this specific influence on the judgments is a myth or not, the reviews in the newspapers before and after <em>Merlyn </em>have been examined. The value judgments in prose and poetry reviews that appeared in <em>Het Parool, de Volkskrant </em>and <em>Trouw </em>in two reference years (1955 and 1975) were collected and categorized in order to make a comparison. The analysis shows several differences between 1955 and 1975 that may be interrelated with <em>Merlyn</em>. Although, of course, the differences found cannot be attributed to <em>Merlyn </em>solely, this study seems to confirm the idea that <em>Merlyn </em>influenced literary reviewing in the newspapers.</p>