A Company of Readers: Uncollected Writings of W. H. Auden, Jacques Barzun, and Lionel Trilling from The Reader's Subscription and Mid-Century Book Clubs - Hardcover

Krystal, Arthur

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0743202627 ISBN 13: 9780743202626

Publisher: Free Press, 2001

Synopsis

An anthology of essays, criticism, and reviews, unpublished for fifty years, includes a selection of writings by W. H. Auden, Jacques Barzun, and Lionel Trilling from the publications of The Reader's Subscription Book Club and the The Mid-Century Book Society, including Trilling's thoughts on The Wind in the Willows, Auden on drugs and cooking, and Barzun on the work of Robert Lowell. 17,500 first printing.

About this title

About the Author:

Jacques Barzun lives in San Antonio, Texas; W. H. Auden died in 1973, and Lionel Trilling in 1975. Editor Arthur Krystal has also edited Jacques Barzun's The Culture We Deserve. Krystal's essays have appeared in The Times Literary Supplement, Harper's, and The New Yorker, among others. He lives in Manhattan.

From Library Journal:

The typical book club of the mid-20th century was established for reasons of business and salesmanship. But one club was different from all the others. The Readers' Subscription Book Club (later reincorporated as the Mid-Century Book Club) was conceived in 1951 in New York to create an audience for books that were above the popular taste. Three literary figures were enlisted to form its editorial board: French American historian, cultural critic, and educator Jacques Barzun; English-born poet W.H. Auden; and American critic and author Lionel Trilling. Their duties included choosing titles and writing monthly reviews in the club's publications, the Griffin and the Mid-Century. This volume is a collection of some of these reviews, reissued for the first time since their initial publication in the club's periodicals. Krystal, a contributor to The New Yorker, the Times Literary Supplement, and Harper's, chose the articles based on the "timeliness," "significance," or "newsworthiness" of the book and author under review, from today's perspective as well as from that of the mid-20th century. This eclectic selection of reviews and essays, including 15 by each of the three writers, examines prominent works by Proust, Dostoevsky, Eliot, Shaw, Baldwin, Faulkner, Montaigne, and others in six thematic chapters. All pieces in the volume are elegantly written and informative even to the reader already familiar with the work being reviewed. An appended list of these reviewers' essays not selected for this volume is useful for reference or for further reading. Recommended for most collections. Ali Houissa, Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Free Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0743202627
• ISBN 13: 9780743202626
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320