SELECTED LETTERS OF EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON

One gets a great deal more Robinson through this collection of letters than through the Hagedorn biography. The letters -- just as letters -- are nice reading, though one questions whether they will have lasting importance, but they do reveal the man and the artist. Written for the most part to his closest friends, and friendship to him was a vital part of life, they are for the most part very disarming, unstudied, fanciful, lightly humorous, and revealing an unflagging optimism which the poverty and lack of recognition of much of his life seemed scarcely to warrant. They show also his ""itch for authorship"" from early days, his tastes, literary and musical, and the aesthetics of his work and his critical approach. Very engaging, though perhaps of interest chiefly to Robinson enthusiasts. A book for college libraries and public libraries.