John Gould Fletcher

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John Gould Fletcher, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and essayist, was a prolific correspondent who, during the course of his life, wrote hundreds of letters to such literary luminaries as Harriet Monroe, T. S. Eliot, Amy Lowell, Conrad Aiken, H. D., John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, and Donald Davidson. Because he was prominent in both the Imagist and Fugitive-Agrarian groups, Fletcher's letters offer a unique insight into the many crosscurrents and personalities that characterize the Modernist movement. Included here are also letters that shed light on the composition of Fletcher's own works, on his influential theories of poetry and poetics, and on the many conflicts and conjunctions that arose between Fletcher and his contemporaries in the course of a writing career that spanned nearly four decades. . Leighton Rudolph's introduction to this astutely selected correspondence presents a valuable overview of Fletcher's life. With this volume, the entire John Gould Fletcher Series from the University of Arkansas Press is completed.

“An interpretation of the life of this strange painter, whose mixed French, Spanish, and Peruvian ancestry seemed to destine him to a life of unconventionality and revolt. It traces his bohemian life in Paris, Brittany, and the South Seas, where he sought a refuge from the restraints and artificialities of modern life. Illustrations from Gauguin’s paintings. Will interest readers who were fascinated by Noa Noa (Adelphi 1919), Gauguin’s own account of his life in the South Sea Islands.” — A.L.A. Catalog 1926 “Within its small compass the author has contrived to include not only the salient features of Gauguin’s life, but a full exposition of Gauguin‘s ideas, showing their relation to the general ideas of his day, and an ample discussion of Gauguin’s art with its subtle relationships to the work of other great painters, past and present. The true story is an unhappy one. Gauguin had a rough savage nature; to most of his associates he must have seemed just such an inhuman and overbearing egoist as the novelist represents.” “A straightforward and competent account of one of the least understood artists of his day.” – The Book Review Digest