Jeffrey Meyers, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, has had thirty-three books translated into fourteen languages and seven alphabets and published on six continents. He has recently published Robert Lowell in Love and The Mystery of the Real: Correspondence with Alex Colville in 2016, and Resurrections: Authors, Heroes—and a Spy in 2018.
Review
July/Aug 2019
Dangerous Edge
Thom Gunn. New Selected Poems. Ed. Clive Wilmer. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018. 284 pp. $30. Thom Gunn (1929–2004) — like Aldous Huxley, W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood, and David […]
Book Reviews
July/Aug 2018
Eliot Agonistes
The Letters of T. S. Eliot. Volume 5, 1930-1931. Ed. Valerie Eliot and John Haffenden. London: Faber & Faber, 2014. lxi + 862 pp. £50. The Letters of T. S. […]
Nonfiction
July/Aug 2017
Xan Fielding: Romantic Adventurer
Lord Byron’s need to escape boredom and quest for adventure; his realization of egoistic fantasies, flamboyant costume and theatrical behavior; his union of thought and action, art and politics; his […]
Book Reviews
Mar/Apr 2016
Paths of Glory
Some Desperate Glory: The First World War the Poets Knew. By Max Egremont. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014. 337 pages. $28.00, hardcover. Chasing Lost Time: The Life of […]
Nonfiction
Winter 2014
D. H. Lawrence’s Children
I D. H. Lawrence had no children of his own and resented his wife’s three children, whom he didn’t get to know until they were adults. But he had extraordinary […]
Nonfiction
Summer 2013
Thomas Mann’s Artist-Stories
Thomas Mann’s turn-of-the-century artist characters in three stories were profoundly influenced by the aestheticism, preciosity, and decadence of the fin-de-siècle. Reacting against stifling bourgeois convention and rapid technological change, many […]
Book Reviews
Fall 2012
Citadel of Integrity
Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia. By Michael Korda. New York: Harper, 2010. 762 pp. $36.00, hardcover. T. E. Lawrence’s greatest achievements were his leadership of […]
Nonfiction
Summer 2012
Lowell’s Politics: Ambivalence and Commitment
I No poet today speaks on political issues with the authoritative voice and the decisive influence of Robert Lowell. Taking advantage of his prestigious name, his powers of expression, and […]
Nonfiction
Fall 2011
Robert Lowell and the Classics
I Robert Lowell had a greater knowledge of the Classics than any major poet of his generation and made the most extensive use of them in his work. At a […]
Nonfiction
Summer 2011
The Savage Experiment: Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine
I In a notorious and influential letter of May 15, 1871, to his publisher-friend Paul Demeny, the sixteen-year-old provincial high-school dropout, Arthur Rimbaud, boldly defined his vision of poetic […]
Book Reviews
Spring 2011
Be Strong!
Letters by Saul Bellow. Edited by Benjamin Taylor. New York: Viking, 2010. xxxvii+571 pp. $35.00, hardcover. Saul Bellow is the most coruscating stylist, the most brilliant intellect, the most compassionate […]
Nonfiction
Winter 2011
The Making of John Huston’s “Freud: The Secret Passion”
I John Huston’s terrible problems with the recalcitrant Jean-Paul Sartre and the broken-down Montgomery Clift when making Freud: The Secret Passion (1962) were worse than filming under fire in The […]
Nonfiction
Spring 2009
Bluebeard Bellow
Perdition catch my soul But I do love thee! And when I love thee not, Chaos is come again. —Othello The sacrificially monogamous Scott Fitzgerald, a shrewd, indeed prophetic observer […]
Nonfiction
Spring 2008
Salter’s Gift
James Salter graduated from West Point, became a fighter pilot and flew one hundred missions against Russian MIGs in the Korean War. He’s had two wives and fathered five children. […]
Nonfiction
Spring 2006
Malraux’s Demons
Malraux: A Life by Olivier Todd. Translated by Joseph West. New York: Knopf, 2005. 541 pages. $35.00. André Malraux (1901-76), a great writer and charismatic personality, remains important for […]
Nonfiction
Autumn 2005
George Orwell and the Art of Writing
I. While our country is bitterly divided by radically opposing views on domestic and foreign policy and we are engaged in an increasingly costly and risky far-off war, we had […]