James Laughlin was first introduced to Henry Miller's writing in 1934 when he was studying with Ezra Pound in Rapallo, Italy. As Laughlin remembers it, one day Pound tossed a book at him across the table at which they were sitting, saying, "Waal...
The correspondence of William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) and James Laughlin (1914- ) began in December 1933. Laughlin asked Williams for a contribution to the student literary magazine, the "Advocate", which appeared in the February 1934 issue....
Their exchanges continued fitfully until they hit a stride in the 1980s and 1990s, the period from which the bulk of the selected letters have been drawn. Both men were amazingly adept correspondents, and their letters are filled with anecdotes, wry humor...
Thomas Merton may have seemed an unlikely candidate for a best-selling author. Cloistered in a remote Kentucky monastery, Merton struggled as a young man to reconcile the contemplative life he sought as a monk and his very public passion for writing. Publ...
DELMORE SCHWARTZ: from his glorification as the golden boy of the American literary scene to his untimely death in 1966, alone and destitute. JAMES LAUGHLIN: founder of New Directions, publisher and editor of the modernists. This collection chronicles...