Selected Letters (Moore, Marianne) (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) [Paperback]

Marianne Moore (Author), Bonnie Costello (Contributor)

Book Description

Series: Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin | Publication Date: November 1, 1998

The correspondence of the American poet, Marianne Moore, of which a selection is published in this volume, documents the first two-thirds of the literary and intellectual life of the 20th century from Victorian to modernist culture, the experience of two world wars, the Depression and post-war prosperity in America, and the changing face of the arts in two continents. Moore's interests embraced all the arts, as well as religion, politics, psychology, fashion, sport and the domestic scene.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

To say that Marianne Moore was an extraordinary woman would be something of an understatement. Poet, editor, critic, and correspondent, Moore was also a friend to many of the greatest artists and writers of the 20th century, as well as an inveterate letter-writer--she sometimes wrote up to 50 letters a day. The Selected Letters of Marianne Moore offers only some of the poet's 30,000 surviving letters, but the ones editors Bonnie Costello, Celeste Goodridge, and Cristanne Miller have chosen are among the créme de la créme. Moore, who lived with her mother and never married, wrote often to her brother John, describing both the quotidian events of her life and her deepest insecurities about her writing. Other frequent recipients of Moore's letters included poets T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Elizabeth Bishop; singer Hildegarde Watson; and close friends Hilda Doolittle and Winifred Ellerman. Then there are the letters to E.E. Cummings, Allen Ginsberg, Edith Sitwell, and more, a veritable who's who of 20th-century arts and letters.

Marianne Moore's letters are fascinating on several accounts: first, there is the originality of her prose, which is invariably charming, witty, and expressive. Then there is the delightful frisson the reader experiences from eavesdropping on other people's private conversations--especially when those people are famous. And finally, there is Moore herself, a complicated, highly intelligent woman whose letters reflect both the turbulent world she lived in and her own responses to it. From women's suffrage to Ezra Pound's treason trial, Marianne Moore witnessed it all--and then she wrote it down. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

In keeping with the recent custom of publishing a broad, one-volume selection of a poet's letters before issuing a more comprehensive edition, as was already done this year with the selected letters of May Sarton (LJ 6/15/97) and Hart Crane (LJ 7/97), editor Costello (English, Boston Univ.) and her two associates have produced a compilation of interest to Moore scholars but also to students of 20th-century poetry generally. Moore's letters to her beloved brother John Warner Moore (a.k.a. "Weaz," "Pidge," "Bruno," "Bible," "Bullfrog," and "Badger," among dozens of other nicknames), with their detailed reports of parties attended, meals consumed, and guests charmed, will interest biographers, while those to such luminaries as Pound, Eliot, Williams, Stevens, cummings, Bishop, Auden, Ginsberg, and other literary movers and shakers amount to a fascinating insider's report on Po Biz from before World War I through the early 1970s. Recommended for academic libraries?David Kirby, Florida State Univ., Tallahassee
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 624 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (November 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0141181206
• ISBN-13: 978-0141181202
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #948,808 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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