Edmund Wilson

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Edmund Wilson (May 8, 1895-June 12, 1972) was an American writer and critic who explored Freudian and Marxist themes.

He inspired several American writers, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose unfinished work he edited for publication.

Wilson's vision for a Library of America series of national classic works came to fruition thanks to Jason Epstein's efforts following Wilson's death.

Early life

Wilson was born in Red Bank, New Jersey, in Red Bank, New Jersey. Edmund Wilson Sr., a lawyer who served as New Jersey Attorney General, and Helen Mather (née Kimball) were his parents. Wilson attended The Hill School, a college preparatory boarding school in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1912. Wilson spent time at Hill as the editor-in-chief of the school's literary journal, The Record. He was educated at Princeton University from 1912 to 1916, where his classmates included F. Scott Fitzgerald and war poet John Allan Wyeth. Wilson began his career as a reporter for the New York Sun and later served in the army with Base Hospital 36 from Detroit, Michigan, and then as a translator during the First World War. The summer home of his family at Talcottville, New York, formerly known as Edmund Wilson House, was on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

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Career

Wilson served as the managing editor of Vanity Fair in 1920 and 1921, and later served as associate editor of The New Republic and as a book reviewer for The New York Review of Books. Upton Sinclair, John Dos Passos, Sinclair Lewis, Floyd Dell, and Theodore Dreiser's works inspired novelists. He served on the Dewey Commission, which was designed to properly investigate the accusations that resulted in Leon Trotsky's deposition. He wrote plays, poems, and books, but literary criticism was his greatest influence.

Axel's Castle: A Study in the Imaginative Literature of 1870-1931 (1931) was a comprehensive survey of symbolism. It featured Arthur Rimbaud, Auguste Villiers de l'Adam (author of Axl), W. B. Yeats, Paul Valéry, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, and Gertrude Stein.

Wilson pledged his support to the Communist Party USA's nominee for President, William Z. Foster, who has signed a manifesto in favour of CPUSA measures, does not identify herself as a communist. Wilson's book To the Finland Station (1940) explored the course of European socialism, from Jules Michelet's discovery of Vico in 1824 to 1917's arrival of Vladimir Lenin at the Finland Station of Saint Petersburg to lead the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution.

Wilson criticized Lovecraft's stories as "hackwork" in an article about the life of horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, "Tales of the Marvellous and Ridiculous" (New Yorker, November 1945; later collected in Classics and Commercials). Wilson is also known for his scathing critique of J. R. Tolkien's book The Lord of the Rings, which he referred to as "junior garbage," saying, "Dr. Tolkien has no talent at narrative and no desire for literary form." He had earlier dismissed W. Somerset Maugham's work in vehement terms (without, as he later claimed, having troubled to read the books generally considered as Maugham's finest, Of Human Bondage, Cakes and Ale, and The Razor's Edge).

Wilson was given The Edward MacDowell Medal by The MacDowell Colony in 1964 for his contributions to American culture.

Wilson lobbied for the publication of a series of classic American literature reminiscent of France's Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. The Library of America collection was launched in 1982, ten years after his death. Wilson's books were included in two volumes published in 2007.

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