Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
Note on the text
Table of dates
List of resipients and dates
Text of letters
Glossary of names
Index
John Haffenden is Professor of English Literature at the University
of Sheffield. His books include The Life of John Berryman, W. H.
Auden: The Critical Heritage, Viewpoints: Poets in Conversation,
and Novelists in Interview; and he has edited Berryman's
Shakespeare and several collections by William Empson including
Complete Poems. The first volume of a biography, William Empson:
Among the Mandarins,
was published in 2005. Haffenden is a Fellow of the Royal Society
of Literature and of the English Association, and has been a
British Academy Research Reader and a Leverhulme Research Fellow.
John Haffenden's fine edition of Empson's Selected Letters contains many gems...One of the many strengths and pleasures of this edition is the way in which Haffenden's editorial labours allow us to situate Empson's line of thought. Matthew Bevis, The Cambridge Quarterley superlative Ian Donaldson Australian Book Review These letters give us more of the Empson we know from the prose, and like the prose they are a startling education in waht reading can be, and why it might matter. London Review of Books No collection of letters by any writer I'm aware of comes even close to matching these 50 years worth of continuing argument about literature, the criticism and teaching of which made up Empson's life Washinton Times this edition is authoritative. impeccable and very usable. Stefan Collini, Times Literary Supplement Few critics have done more for poetry than Empson (1906-1984); few have led stranger or more adventurous lives... Empson's travels make entertaining reading... The main reason for reading Empson's own writings is to see what he made of the authors he cherished. (He was the best reader Donne ever had.)... In an era when readers debate whether poetry matters, it helps to remember a man who defended it, and pursued his own arguments about it, even to the ends of the earth. New York Times Book Review This is a splendid book. There is something to enjoy on every page. The Review of English Studies, Vol. 58, no. 233
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