DELMORE SCHWARTZ: from his glorification as the golden boy of the American literary scene to his untimely death in 1966, alone and destitute. JAMES LAUGHLIN: founder of New Directions, publisher and editor of the modernists. This collection chronicles a correspondence that began with the poet's first unsolicited submission to New Directions in 1937, and continued throughout the tempestuous friendship that lasted until the poet's death. The relationship that developed between them was both literary, steeped in their own work and that of their contemporaries, and personal: gifted storytellers, they delighted each other with factual and fictional observations. The two remained friends and colleagues until the mental illness that eventually claimed him began to destroy Schwartz's ability to trust even those closest to him. Here follows the highs and lows of a relationship between two extraordinary personalities.

Delmore Schwartz became the voice of a new generation, when In Dreams Begin Responsibilities was published in the debut issue of 'Partisan Review' in 1937. The title story tells of an unnamed young man who has a dream that he is in an old-fashioned movie theatre in 1909. As he sits down to watch the film, he starts to realize that it is a motion picture documenting his parents' courtship. At turns he becomes engrossed, upset and outraged, in a story that set the stage for the arrival of an acclaimed literary voice.

Elegant, powerful, and unique, this short story tells the tale of a young, nameless man who dreams he is in an old-fashioned movie theater in 1909. When he sits down to watch the film, he realizes that it documents his parents' courtship. Overcome by a sudden sadness--he knows the story will end in a loveless marriage filled with mutual recrimination--the protagonist shouts at the screen, desperately trying to interfere in his progenitors' romance, only to have the rest of the audience think him mad. All of Delmore Schwartz's narrative ability was crystallized in this, the most famous of his short stories.