Word: israfel
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Strictly as an account of Dreiser's bitter early years, this is one of the best biographies of an American literary figure since Israfel, Hervey Allen's life of Poe. Its report of Dreiser's last years is perfunctory and its criticism of his work is so noncommittal that the reader has trouble in fathoming Author Elias' own opinion. But Dreiser's youth in the gaslit underworld of Terre Haute, his work in the rowdy newspaper and music publishing houses of the turn of the century, and above all, the gaudy entrances & exits...
...tragedy is one that haunts the imagination no matter how much or how little is known of his life. Hervey Allen's Israfel cleared up most of the legendary mysteries of his career without making the poet himself any less strange, or unearthly a character. This handsome two-volume edition of Poe's letters, the work of John Ward Ostrom (associate professor of English at Wittenberg College), is essential to every serious student of Poe's career; but on the basis of this collection alone the reader might well form a picture of America's greatest...
...says, "more writing than almost any American." Behind him are eight books of poems, five of prose. Toward the Flame is considered one of the best U.S. personal records of World War I (of which Allen is a wounded veteran). In biography his greatest claim to scholarly fame is Israfel (TIME, Dec. 24, 1934), a searching study of the life and times of Edgar Allan...