Edmund Wilson: Centennial Reflections, edited by Lewis M. Dabney (Princeton Paperbacks, no price given)

Wilson was a great man of letters in the old style, combining deep erudition, a hunger for culture in all forms, and a gift for…

Wilson was a great man of letters in the old style, combining deep erudition, a hunger for culture in all forms, and a gift for languages - he even learned Hebrew so that he could enter into the Dead Sea Scrolls controversy with some authority. His centennial fell in 1995, marked by various symposia of which the essays in this collection are the legacy.

Reminiscences by friends are included, and the whole enterprise is a reminder of how wide Wilson's interests ranged and how he retained to the end a real hunger for knowledge.

  • Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date

  • Sign up for push alerts to get the best breaking news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone

  • Listen to In The News podcast daily for a deep dive on the stories that matter