Guy Davenport and James Laughlin: Selected Letters

by Guy Davenport, James Laughlin, W. C. Bamberger (Editor)

Overview

An epistolary exchange that highlights two singular intellects, their disparate approaches to literature and their mutual admiration.

This volume features selections from the New Directions founder's correspondence with Guy Davenport, the polymath artist and author of The Geography of the Imagination. More than simply detailing an author/publisher relationship, these letters depict two fine minds educating and supporting each other in the service of literature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393059502
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	01/17/2007
Pages:	286
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

As Bruce Bawer wrote in Bookforum, "the late Guy Davenport (1927-2005) left behind an oeuvre that is one long lesson in the history of civilization, and to read any part of it—story, essay, or translation—is to be enthralled by his unflagging intellectual energy and engagement." His books include The Geography of the Imagination, The Death of Picasso, Herakleitos and Diogenes, A Table of Green Fields, The Cardiff Team, DaVinci's Bicycle, and many more.

W. C. Bamberger operates Bamberger Books, which keeps Guy Davenport’s poem Flowers & Leaves in print. He lives in Whitmore Lake, Michigan.

Table of Contents

Introduction     VII
Notes on the Text     XVII
Acknowledgments     XXI
Letters     1
Selected Bibliography: Books by Guy Davenport and James Laughlin     245
Index     247

Editorial Reviews

While James Laughlin was born to a patrician steel family and inherited a vast fortune, Guy Davenport grew up poor in South Carolina, but with truly awesome brains and talent (he went from ninth grade directly to Duke University, then won a Rhodes scholarship and later in life was awarded a MacArthur fellowship). Davenport is genuinely thrilled to be published by New Directions, "whose books have been the best part of my education," and Laughlin is honored and proud to publish him…reveal[s] two enviably high-spirited and impassioned men of letters, whose lives were devoted to art and literature and humanistic scholarship. We are, whether we know it or not, their humble beneficiaries.
—The Washington Post

Michael Dirda