THE NEW PARTISAN READER: 1945-1953

This anthology from the Partisan Review is fairly distinguished in tone and slightly existentialist in substance. The first section is devoted to some bitter but well-written short stories in the Truman Capote genre. The next section -- poetry -- contains perhaps the most eminent names:- Auden, Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, and other avant-garde poets of sound reputation and is definitely worth while. The final sections contain essays on literary and political subjects in the somewhat fine-spun manner of this magazine. Some are interesting- some merely mannered. And yet this anthology includes perhaps the outstanding literary talents of today. It is well edited and has distinctive style. But these virtues will not insure sales for its appeal is to a sharply defined literary coterie.