Babe Ruth's Ghost and Other Historical and Literary Speculations - Softcover

Louis D. Rubin Jr.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 029597530X ISBN 13: 9780295975306

Publisher: Univ of Washington Pr, 1996

Synopsis

Thirteen essays by Louis Rubin exploring a broad range of literary subjects. Rubin is the founder of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, distinguished critic and author of more than forty books. Essay topics include Babe Ruth's Ghost, Winston Churchill and historical revisionism as well as ghostwriting and the situation in American letters today.

About this title

About the Author

Louis D. Rubin, Jr., taught English and creative writing, mainly at Johns Hopkins University, Hollins College, and the University of North Carolina.

From Publishers Weekly

Rubin is best known in the publishing community as the founder of Algonquin Books and the eminence grise of Chapel Hill's literary renaissance. But he isn't only to be admired for exposing readers to Larry Brown, Lewis Nordan, Kay Gibbons and Jill McCorkle. This former literature professor is a fine writer himself, as this collection of occasional prose will quickly make apparent to those who haven't already been convinced by earlier books such as Small Craft Advisory. Whether questioning Britain's WWII revisionism or suggesting it's only appropriate that Babe Ruth would leave the writing of his autobiography to a more literate sympathizer, Rubin reveals history to be a human, if not humane, endeavor. A reexamination of T.S. Eliot's elitist, self-serving criticism may question the Modernist's reputation as a critic, but it never denies Eliot's talent as a poet. Rubin also debunks the myths surrounding acquaintances--William Golding, for one--and personal friends--the late Cleanth Brooks and Howard Nemerov--with similar graciousness and deference. Remembering the 1956 reunion of the Fugitives, the arbiters of Southern literature of a different era, Rubin notes: "They had their faults, their vanities, their blind spots, as who has not." Like those of his mentors, Rubin's vanities and blind spots are easily forgiven. His subjects deserve no less than the literate, thoughtful and even gentlemanly essays he delivers.

Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Univ of Washington Pr
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 029597530X
• ISBN 13: 9780295975306
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 214