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FDU PRESS
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| Scholarly Review |
 | The Letters of William Carlos Williams to Edgar Irving Williams, 1902-1912
ISBN# 9780838641484
Reviewed by: Natalie Gerber, STate University of New York Fedonia
Resources for American Literary Study, Vol. 34, 2009 |
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This volume of letters from Williams to his younger brother Edgar covers Williams's early years, from his studies at the University of Pennsylvania to the establishment of his medical practice in Rutherford, New Jersey, and promises significantly to enrich critical scholarship on early Williams in several respects. Most practically, the volume offers a robust complement to the earliest letters by Williams previously in print; the main period herein represented, 1902-12 (a final chapter presents key letters speaking to significant biographical and literary events transpiring from 1918-1959), occupies a slender twenty pages in John C. Thirwall's Selected Letters. More substantially, since Edgar was, in Williams's own words, his "first intimate" (I Wanted to Write a Poem 3), these letters offer us a fascinating view of the younger Bill Williams as a private man. Williams's letters to his dear brother "Bo," a budding and soon-to-be- successful architect, present what is likely a less-embellished portrait of the young medical student and would-be writer than that available even in the earliest Pound/Williams letters, which start in 1907.
This collection is beautifully presented and the reader benefits from the extensive scholarly knowledge of its editor. Krivak's introduction of over twenty pages summarizes key facets of scholarly interest found in these letters and puts major biographical events and comments on aesthetics in dialogue with existing accounts in publications by and about Williams. Likewise, more than forty pages of notes supplement the letters with detailed glosses of foreign phrases and contemporary slang, as well as helpful identifications of persons, places, and events.
Those interested in economies - both affective and monetary - intellectual, artistic, commercial, and sexual / gender studies will be particularly rewarded by this volume.
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