The Man Who Read Everything

The Literary Letters of Harold Bloom

A selection of the lively letters between one of the worlds greatest literary critics and the poets, novelists, and scholars he most admired

Terrific from first to last.Dwight Garner, New York Times Book Review

Bringing together a collection of Harold Blooms letters to and from eight of his favorite contemporary writers, Heather Cass White provides an intimate view of one of the most famous literary critics of the last century. In correspondence with Alvin Feinman, Northrop Frye, A. R. Ammons, John Hollander, James Merrill, John Ashbery, Henri Cole, and Ursula K. Le Guin, we see Bloom developing his groundbreaking theory of poetic influence, transforming himself into a public intellectual, and reckoning with the meaning of his own legacy.

While Blooms public persona was oracular, sure, and often combative, his letters are inquiring and provisional, revealin