Edmund Wilson: A Life in Literature [Hardcover]

Lewis M. Dabney (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 11, 2005

From the Jazz Age through the McCarthy era, Edmund Wilson (1895-1972) stood at the center of the American cultural scene. In his own youth a crucial champion of the young Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Wilson went on to write three classics of literary and intellectual history (Axel's Castle, To the Finland Station, and Patriotic Gore), searching reportage, and criticism that has outlasted many of its subjects. Wilson documented his unruly private life--a formative love affair with Edna St. Vincent Millay, a tempestuous marriage to Mary McCarthy, and volatile friendships with Fitzgerald and Vladimir Nabokov, among others--in openly erotic fiction and journals, but Lewis Dabney is the first writer to integrate the life and work.

Dabney traces the critic's intellectual development, from son of small-town New Jersey gentry to America's last great renaissance man, a deep commentator on everything from the Russian classics to Native American rituals to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Along the way, Dabney shows why Wilson was and has remained--in his cosmopolitanism and trenchant nonconformity--a model for young writers and intellectuals, as well as the favorite critic of the general reader. Edmund Wilson will be recognized as the lasting biography of this brilliant man whose life reflected so much of the cultural, social, and human experience of a turbulent century.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Dabney, who edited The Sixties, the last volume of Wilson's posthumous journals, brings a deep familiarity with his subject to this critical biography. Wilson (1895–1972) was mid–20th-century America's most influential literary critic, and Dabney meticulously unfolds the circumstances behind the writing of his most significant books while tracing the evolution of Wilson's thought. Wilson was equally skilled at criticism and reportage, and fairly successful at fiction—including the scandalously erotic (for the 1940s) novel Memoirs of Hecate County—and Dabney confidently sorts out these varied writings and their part in Wilson's legacy. Biographical details are generally filtered through the literary perspective, but the life story does get a thorough if sometimes slow rendering. The account of Wilson's "nightmarish" marriage to Mary McCarthy, for example, carefully weighs everything that both authors wrote about the relationship after the fact, as well as the perspectives of other sources, before judging that accusations that Wilson abused her are probably unfounded. Often, though, the best source on Wilson is his own detailed (and uncensored) journals, which frequently add a welcome personalizing touch. Readers seeking an introduction to Wilson will find their perseverance through this hefty tome rewarded with a rich context for approaching his writings. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine

A divisive character deserves a split decision, and Edmund Wilson and his "authorized" biographer Lewis Dabney suffer from mixed reviews. Some critics welcome the new treatment as a balanced, sober look at a life that was anything but. Comparisons of the biographer’s literary style with that of his subject are unfair, but the criticism of Dabney’s tendency to linger on the sordid details while parsing out dry readings of Wilson’s work hangs over the negative reviews. These questions seem less pointed at Dabney’s work than at the metalevel value of personal information in a biography: is Wilson—or any writer—just his work, or are we simply happier to view him that way?

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 656 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1st edition (August 11, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374113122
• ISBN-13: 978-0374113124
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,094,994 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A thorough examination of the life and work of a America's most important literary critic, September 5, 2005

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Edmund Wilson: A Life in Literature (Hardcover)

Edmund Wilson was for forty years , from the thirties to his death in 1972 the most important literary critic in America. A passionate champion of modernism in Literature he in his pioneering volume 'Axel's Castle' introduced to the American public Joyce and Proust. A college classmate, rival and critical conscience for F. Scott Fitzgerald he also contributed to the promotion and understanding of Fitzgerald's work. As a cultural critic in his monumental work on the Russian Revolution 'To the Finland Station' he showed his great skill in biographical writing, and his capacity for flawed historical judgment. A person with a tremendous appetite for work, a great creative energy (Despite his addiction to alcohol) he late in life studied, learning Hebrew to do so, the Dead Sea Scrolls and wrote an important volume about them. He too late in life published his opionated and forceful journal ' Upstate' In an early novel ' Hecate County' he revealed a sexual frankness unusual for its time. Most importantly though he was a passionate lover of Literature( American Literature especially) and the kind of critic whose writing was not meant for a jargoned academia but for the broad public. His work on Civil War Literature ' Patriotic Gore' is another of his outstanding critical efforts.
This tremendous record of literary and cultural achievement is as Dabney so methodically and painstakingly evidences compromised by a personal life and character less than admirable. Wilson was an uncertain friend,and a poor husband to his four wives. His most famous marriage to the writer Mary McCarthy did have the redeeming element of producing his only son, Reuel, but was a 'nightmare'. Wilson was quick to anger,and a master of verbal abuse. Even with those he genuinely admired and championed most notably Nabakov he eventually quarreled bitterly with.
With all this the story of his life and work is dramatic, interesting, filled with meetings with the central cultural and creative people of his time.
His life and work raise and do not answer the question, more extremely perhaps raised by the life and work of a more famous American writer who Wilson did not incidentally think much of , Robert Frost- i.e. how the writer can be so good, while the person so less than admirable.
Nonetheless, for all those interested in the literary life, in American cultural history this volume is an invaluable 'must'.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Life Of An American Writer, September 3, 2005

By 

C. Hutton "book maven" (East Coast, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Edmund Wilson: A Life in Literature (Hardcover)

Edmund Wilson was the dominant literary critic of the 20th century. A brilliant scholar and writer, he was a problem drinker at best and a disaster in his relationships with women (see his four marriages and many love affairs). It is fair to sum up his life as a personal battlezone and a professional genius.

Mr Dabney was a friend and editor of Edmund Wilson's later literary accomplishments. He utilizes his personal knowledge, Mr. Wilson's extensive diaries/essays/books/reviews and other's written perceptions of him to create an exhaustive and definitive account of his life.

Mr. Wilson seems to have been as careless in his personal affairs (money management was unknown to him) as he was careful with his writing. An early advocate of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Joyce, he became a political leftist during the Depression and an isolationist due to his experiences during World War I. The reader is referred to Mr. Wilson's classic account of the cost of war, "Patriotic Gore." The reader will not be bored by this well-written and colorful life of Edmund Wilson.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 20th century lit in review, March 3, 2006

By 

Arthur Bloom (St Germain en Laye, France) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Edmund Wilson: A Life in Literature (Hardcover)

A superb review of Wilson's life and work, one which translates to a superb review of 20th century American literature in general. A bit heavy on the Princeton origins of Wilson and friends; but, what the hell, not a bad place to begin a writing life. A very good "read".
Arthur Bloom