Man Who Read Everything : The Literary Letters of Harold Bloom

Bloom, Harold; White, Heather Cass (EDT)

ISBN 10: 0300283830 / ISBN 13: 9780300283839

Published by Yale University Press, 2026

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 51049266-n

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Man Who Read Everything : The Literary Letters of Harold Bloom
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication Date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300283830
• ISBN 13: 9780300283839
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

A selection of the lively letters between one of the world’s 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 Bloom’s 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 Bloom’s public persona was oracular, sure, and often combative, his letters are inquiring and provisional, revealing his overarching obsession with good writing. The presence of love, as the letters show, was always vital to how Bloom worked as a reader. Filled with delightful anecdotes and poignant observations, these letters―many of them published here for the first time―offer a new window onto twentieth-century letters and Bloom’s long and illustrious career.

About the Author

Harold Bloom (1930–2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of the Humanities at Yale University. His books include The Anatomy of Influence and Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles. Heather Cass White is an English professor at the University of Alabama. She is the author of Books Promiscuously Read: Reading as a Way of Life, among other volumes.