Choice reviews Edmund Wilson

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Of the roughly 70,000 Wilson letters known to exist, only a small percentage have appeared in Letters on Literature and Politics, 1912-1972, ed. by Elena Wilson (1977); Dear Bunny, Dear Volodya: The Nabokov-Wilson Letters, 1940-1971, ed. by Simon Karlinsky (2001); and now in the volume under review, which differs from the other two in that its focus is not on Wilson the critic-polemicist but on Wilson the son, husband, lover, father, and friend. This book is a tremendous pleasure to read because Wilson is one of the great prose stylists of American letters, and few Americans have written as well about such a wide variety of subjects. He is also witty, irascible, gossipy, opinionated, clever, and delightful. The editors slip occasionally, as when they gloss a sentence written to Louise Bogan--"So get you gone, von Hufel, though with spinach in your beard!'"as 'a jocular reference to previous German sessions' instead of recognizing it as a take-off on the last line of Yeat's poem "Vacillation." On the whole, however, they have done a splendid job in their selection and organization and with their helpful footnotes and brief introductions. A valuable addition to the oeuvre of one of American culture's finest critics; highly recommended for all collections.

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