Routledge The Letters of Wyndham Lewis: 2 (Routledge Library Editions: Wyndham Lewis)

Originally published in 1963 and edited by an authority on Wyndham Lewis (whom he also knew personally) this volume made available for the first time over 500 letters of Wyndham Lewis, who for half a century was a dynamic force among English artists and intellectuals. Culturally, Lewis played the dual role of innovator and iconoclast. Lewis’s letters show the wide range of his interests as well as his great verbal energy and unrelenting intellect. Lewis knew most of the significant artists and writers of his time and some of them – Augustus John, Pound, Eliot and Joyce were his lifelong friends and chief correspondents. Regardless of to whom he was writing, he displayed his intense awareness of the personalities and currents around him. Review ‘It is, I believe, the best book of its kind… in this book Mr. Rose has shown that the editing of letters can be regarded as one of the fine arts: His running commentary and annotations have the authority of a freshly documented biography.’ Horace Gregory, The New York Times. 'The Letters... nail Lewis down as a brilliant, touchy Welshman with a splendid power of invective and insulting laughter…and give us a blurred view of his originality as an artist and of his glamour as a conspiratorial figure in literary and painting circles. ' V.S. Pritchett, New York Review of Books. About the Author W. K. Rose was for many years a student of Wyndham Lewis, whom he knew personally. He was on the Faculty of Vassar College, USA.