A Company of Readers: Uncollected Writings of W.H. Auden, Jacques Barzun, and Lionel Trilling from the Reader's Subscription and Mid-Century

The monumental From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, published last year, may be Jacques Barzun's crowning achievement, but A Company of Readers: Uncollected Writings of W.H. Auden, Jacques Barzun, and Lionel Trilling from the Readers' Subscription and Mid-Century Book Clubs further reveals the depth of his roots in American letters. Edited with an introduction by Arthur Krystal and with a foreword by Barzun, the book shows the mid-century giants in full public intellectual mode: introducing, pronouncing, off-handedly dismissing acts that gave thousands of book club subscribers the terms by which they read the likes of Joyce, Baldwin, Faulkner, Colette and many other greats. ( Aug.)