Although James Laughlin (1914-1997) came from one of Pittsburgh's leading steel-making families, his passions were literary rather than industrial - he wanted to be a poet. Laughlin was a freshman at Harvard when he traveled to Rapallo, Italy, in 1933 to meet Ezra Pound (1885-1972), and he returned the following year to enroll in the poet's Ezuversity. Pound dismissed Laughlin's poetic talents, advising the wealthy young man to make himself a publisher. Laughlin did just that, founding New Directions Press in 1936. For much of the 1930s, Laughlin and Pound were friends, business associates,...