New Releases by Richard Ellmann

“The book helps fill in the picture of a complex and fascinating man...indispensable for the serious study of the subject.”—Edmund Wilson, The New Yorker The most influential poet of his age, Yeats eluded the grasp of many who sought to explain him. In this classic critical examination of the poet, Richard Ellmann strips away the masks of his subject: occultist, senator of the Irish Free State, libidinous old man, and Nobel Prize winner.

This classic study of Yeats’ verse examines the poet’s development of theme, symbol, style, and pattern. Through his knowledge of Yeats’ life as well as his published and unpublished work, Ellmann recreates Yeats’ ways of thinking, seeing, and writing and clarifies his difficult poems.

Editors Are John Crowe Ransom, Philip Blair Rice, Eric Bentley, Cleanth Brooks, Lionel Trilling, And Robert Penn Warren.

In four Library of Congress lectures, also published as articles in New York Review of Books, the eminent literary biographer finds interesting if not new things to say about four great Irish-born writers: Oscar Wilde, influenced by Ruskin and Pater at Oxford, wavering between Roman Catholicism and atheism, between homo- and heterosexuality; W .B. Yeats, after a ``monkey-gland'''' operation, writing several great poems toward the end of his life; James Joyce, trying to start love affairs to provide background for the Nausicaa chapter in Ulysses; Samuel Beckett, sumptuous in his use of language, isolating, nearly renouncing particulars and depriving his characters of money, youth, health and fortitude. Ellmann finds connections as well as differences among these writers. Because of what Beckett has written, his Irish predecessors "take on a different look. Because of their work, he may not seem quite so rootless as he first appears."

Stanislaus Joyce was more than his brother''s keeper: he was at various times his brother''s co-dependent, touchstone, conscience, and biggest fan. The two shared the same genius, the same childhood influences, and had the same literary instinct, but in Stanislaus it was channeled into sober academic pursuit, while in James it evolved into gaiety, wild whimsy, and at times sodden despair.Covering the first twenty-two years of James Joyce''s life in Dublin and Trieste, My Brother''s Keeper is a window onto the drama that was his youth. Thanks to Stanislaus''s superb memory and sure hand, here we find the Dublin of Dubliners: the streets, neighbors, churches, and unforgettable eccentrics. Here we see the model for Ulysses'' Simon Dedalus: James'' father, a dour and violent figure when in his cups. Here are the Joyces in their own home, and the minor characters that pepper A Portrait of the Artist: Eileen, Leopold Bloom''s comely daughter; Mrs. Riordan, the surly teacher; Mr. Casey, the political agitator. And finally, here is Trieste, a place of exile for Stanislaus but a retreat for James. Stanislaus Joyce has fashioned both an invaluable primary source for his brother''s opaque masterpieces and a loving memoir of his brother''s early life.

A splendid collection of literary essays by "the greatest biographer of the century"--The Sunday Times, London. Ellmann''s Oscar Wilde was a tremendous critical success, winning both the NBCC and the Pulitzer Prize last year.

Richard Ellmann''s scholarly work is notable for its striking liveliness and clarity and its genuine illumination of the writers and works with which he dealt. His life of James Joyce, published in 1959, received more commendation and critical praise than any previous literary biography.

Winner of both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize, Oscar Wilde is the definitive biography of the tortured poet and playwright and the last book by renowned biographer and literary critic Richard Ellmann. Ellmann dedicated two decades to the research and writing of this biography, resulting in a complex and richly detailed portrait of Oscar Wilde. Ellman captures the wit, creativity, and charm of the psychologically and sexually complicated writer, as well as the darker aspects of his personality and life. Covering everything from Wilde''s rise as a young literary talent to his eventual imprisonment and death in exile with exquisite detail, Ellmann''s fascinating account of Wilde''s life and work is a resounding triumph.

This definitive work on Joyce''s life has been revised and expanded to include the discovery of much primary material - including a new love affair, Boswellian records of his brother''s conversations by Stanislaus Joyce, a limerick about Samuel Beckett, a dream notebook, previously unknown letters, and much more.

Traces the literary ancestry of Ulysses and discusses how Joyce triangulated himself with Homer and Shakespeare. Professor Ellmann demonstrates that Joyce, far from being apolitical, was revolutionary, working in his own oblique fashion to subvert existing institutions.

An interpretation of Joyce''s masterpiece which illuminates its philosophical and literary significance.