Lionel Trilling and Irving Howe: And Other Stories of Literary Friendship

This pioneering effort links history and personality, by pairing intellectual friends and foes, most notably Lionel Trilling and Irving Howe, but also Thomas Carlyle and John Stuart Mill, T.E. Lawrence and Bertrand Russell, and lesser known figures. The periods range from the early 1830s, when Carlyle and Mill discovered each other, to 1975, when Lionel Thrilling died and the relationship with Howe ended. The essay that gives this volume its title is also the most ambitious. Alexander exami...