Kategoria BISAC: Literary Collections >> Letters

The year that began in August 1515 was the annus mirabilis of Erasmus' career, the year, notably of the epistles of St Jerome and the first edition of his New Testament. In the months following, covered in this volume of the CWE, from August 1516 to June 1517, the active exchange of letters that began with volume 3 continued, giving a vivid impression of the impact of Erasmus' great achievement upon his contemporaries. In his own words, "The New Testament has made me friends everywhere."

To Erasmus, the most important event of these months was intensely private, the...

This volume covers the first ten months of Erasmus' residence at Louvain. He lived during this time in the College of the Lily, his position presitgious and secure. he was a member of the theological faculty, yet free of regular academic duties and entitled to receive a regular income more than adequate to his modest needs. His predominant task in the course of these months was the re-editing of the New Testament, which he considered his magnum opus: through his work on the New Testament the use he made of his time and talent would be judged by God and man alike. There are frequent...

A painful time in Erasmus' life is reflected in this volume of letters. As the two volumes immediately previous to this one indicated, Erasmus' first two years in Louvain were agreeable, productive, and carefree. But the spirit of congenial scholarship in which he lived at this time was gradually giving way to bitter conflict and controversy: Louvain was merely a microcosm of Erasmus' entire world, which was undergoing great strain. The exuberant expectancy of a Golden Age of civilized Christianity was yielding to the bleak prospect of helplessly watching the progress of what Erasmus...

The period from April 1523 to December 1524 finds Erasmus still in Basel and still preoccupied above all with 'the sorry business of Luther.' He knows that the efforts of his conservative Catholic detractors to prove that he had 'laid the egg that Luther hatched' can be overcome only if he takes an unambiguous public stand against Luther, and friendly princes and prelates constantly urge him to do so. But he dreads the controversy that an attack on Luther will arouse and fears that the overthrow of Luther will entail the defeat of all wholesome reform.

This reluctance to 'enter the...

Ephraim Weber (1870-1956) was a struggling young writer when he began corresponding with L.M. Montgomery (1874-1942) in 1902, six years before she published her first novel. Weber's initial letter was that of an admirer. Montgomery responded warmly, and the two quickly began a correspondence that became an intellectual mainstay for both of them over the following forty years. After Green Gables is a fascinating collection of letters sent by Montgomery to Weber between 1916 and 1941. This was the period of Montgomery's greatest literary success, but privately she was deeply troubled...

Northrop Frye's status as one of the most influential critics and intellectuals of the twentieth century makes it difficult to gauge the personal qualities of the man behind the work. However, an intimate picture is revealed through the correspondence Frye exchanged with his first wife, Helen Kemp, and which he bequeathed to Victoria College at the time of his death. In A Glorious and Terrible Life with You, Margaret Burgess presents the essential narrative at the heart of the correspondence, focusing on the thoughts, feelings, and formative experiences of the two central...

Northrop Frye's status as one of the most influential critics and intellectuals of the twentieth century makes it difficult to gauge the personal qualities of the man behind the work. However, an intimate picture is revealed through the correspondence Frye exchanged with his first wife, Helen Kemp, and which he bequeathed to Victoria College at the time of his death. In A Glorious and Terrible Life with You, Margaret Burgess presents the essential narrative at the heart of the correspondence, focusing on the thoughts, feelings, and formative experiences of the two central...

In this expanded edition of Randall Jarrell's letters, his widow, Mary, has added letters from Jarrell to Peter Taylor, publication of which was withheld during Taylor's lifetime. Taylor was, along with Robert Lowell, Jarrell's oldest and closest friend, and the inclusion of these incomparable letters adds another dimension of friendship, artistry, and intellect to a collection already noted for its behind-the-scenes glimpse of twentieth-century American literary history in the making.

Writer, artist, Manhattan gallery owner, and co-editor of the Little Review, Jane Heap was one of the most dynamic figures of the international avant garde, creating a life that defined the -modernist experience- as a syncretic one. Deliberately seeking a low profile throughout her life, Heap has frustrated many scholars interested in her personal life and the extraordinarily vital period in which she lived. Through her correspondence, Heap here reveals her intimate self as well as her more public, creative relationships with some of the legends of modern art, literature, and...

General Series Editors: Gay Wilson Allen and Sculley Bradley

Originally published between 1961 and 1984, and now available in paperback for the first time, the critically acclaimed Collected Writings of Walt Whitman captures every facet of one of America's most important poets.

In discussing letter-writing, Whitman made his own views clear. Simplicity and naturalness were his guidelines. I like my letters to be personal very personal and then stop. This collection of nearly 3,000 letters written over a half century reveals Whitman the man as no other documents can.

Volume I includes...