The mauve life and times of Edmund Gosse glow warmly in these
letters, delightful to even the most casual reader, engrossing to
one with an interest in the distinguished correspondents or in the
late-Victorian and Edwardian eras. An obscure figure today to all
but literary connoisseurs, Gosse was, in his day, a near giant in
both England and the United States. Max Beerbohm, that
discriminating man, in a mural of prominent figures who were also
his friends, sketched Edmund Gosse large among George Bernard Shaw,
John Masefield, G. K. Chesterton, John Galsworthy, and Lytton
Strachey. This volume consists primarily of a selection of the
letters exchanged between Gosse and a number of American writers,
notably William Dean Howells, Edmund Clarence Stedman, Oliver
Wendell Holmes, Richard Watson Gilder, Edith Wharton, and Henry
James. The letters, most of them previously unpublished, contain
much of biographical and general historical interest, but the main
theme of the book is the exploration of Anglo-American literary
relations during the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the
early years of the twentieth. The letters that passed between Gosse
and Stedman provide valuable evidence for the study of literary
taste on the two sides of the Atlantic and also show how each man
sought to enhance the other's transatlantic reputation; the
correspondence between Gosse and Gilder, particularly during the
period when Gosse was London editor of Gilder's Century magazine,
is especially revealing of cultural attitudes and antagonisms. A
central thread is provided by the warm and long-sustained
friendship between Gosse and Howells, the leading American man of
letters of his day. The long introduction to the book deals with
such topics as Gosse's American reputation, his immensely
successful visit to the United States in the winter of 1884-1885
(based on the manuscript diary that Gosse kept during the visit),
and his American friendships, with particular attention to the
relationship with Howells. The thoroughness and vitality of the
annotation are extremely effective in familiarizing the reader with
the people and events in the book.
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