The Letters of Robert Frost, Vol. 3: 1929–1936

Robert Frost emerges as a struggling father and a poet at the height of his career in the intimate latest addition to the five-volume collection of his letters. Family matters are central, primarily the death of his daughter, Marjorie, at age 29 in 1934, and some correspondence reveals Frost as an unsentimental realist in regards to poetry—in one letter, he writes that he isn’t a poet if it means being someone “who thinks there is something special about a poet and about his loving one unattainable woman.” Elsewhere, Frost cannily informs his editor, Joseph Blumenthal, not to use anything Frost “modestly said” to keep him from getting the royalties he deserves, and offers his own theory of the form, writing that it is “the act of heightening not taking advantage of” things others have written about. Frost’s letters to his son cover such topics as football, the price of turkey, and the weather; when his daughter Marjorie dies of puerperal fever, he writes to poet Louis Untermeyer that “the noblest of us is dead and has taken our hearts out of the world.” Frost’s fans and anyone with a deep interest in poetry will find this a treasure trove of emotion and insights. (Apr.)