Word: edel
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...three-volume megabiography of Henry James, Leon Edel avoided pedantry and trivia while still painting a detailed picture. Realizing the significance of this achievement, Edel explained his principles in a book called Literary Biography. His conclusions now stand as an apt indictment of Joseph Blotner's eight-and-a-half pound Faulkner: "the writing of a literary life would be nothing but a kind of indecent curiosity, and an invasion of privacy, were it not that it seeks always to illuminate the mysterious and magical process of creation." Blotner fails this test; he does not disengage the essence of Faulkner...
...half has not been distinguished by pioneer literary criticism, it was certainly an age of great literary biographies. A few primary examples come to mind: Richard Elimann's biography of James Joyce (1959). W.J. Bate's of John Keats (1963), Henri Troyat's of Tolstoy (1967) and Leon Edel's of Henry James of which the final volume appeared early in 1972. All are definitive studies and brilliant. Quentin Bell's new biography of the British feminist critic and novelist. Virginia Woolf, while lacking the voluminous scope of some recent works because it intentionally avoids a critical evaluation...
...first meeting with Edwin, which occurred when the former was six months old and the latter but a few days. From that moment, Jeffrey preys upon the unfortunate Edwin, and after his untimely death launches into his "biography" with a confident zeal that would give pause to Leon Edel...
...their husbands' credentials alone: all the other women distinguished themselves by their ideas and actions--in the arts, in the sciences, in religion and reform, in business and philanthropy. The biographers are noted scholars themselves--Anne Firor Scott on Jane Addams, Allan Nevins on Jessie Benton Fremont, Leon Edel on Willa Cather and Alice James...
Mathew D. Edel, Dept. of Economics M.I.T...