As a writer, scholar, critic, teacher, bibliophile, and publisher, Matthew J. Bruccoli had immeasurable impact on American literary scholarship and history over the past half century. In his more than one hundred published books, Bruccoli demonstrated a rare model of scholarship based on tenacious research, passionate intensity, and encyclopedic knowledge of his subjects. He brought this same spirited mode of inquiry to his essays as well. On Books and Writers brings together thirty of Bruccoli's best short pieces from journals, anthologies, and other publications to illustrate in a single volume the remarkable range and enduring contributions of this accomplished man of letters.
The collection begins with six essays on F. Scott Fitzgerald―an ideal starting point considering Bruccoli's status as the author's foremost scholar, collector, and advocate. From there the volume proceeds through thoughtfully organized sections on Bruccoli's other great interests: bibliography, publishing and publishers, bookmen, libraries and librarians, and a host of writers including Thomas Wolfe, Ernest Hemingway, John O'Hara, and Raymond Chandler. Each piece resonates with the commanding wisdom, companionable wit, and cordial prose of its author. The book concludes with a comprehensive bibliography of Bruccoli's publications.
Edited by John C. Unrue, Bruccoli's friend for some forty years, this collection takes readers inside the profession of literature in which Bruccoli held such great sway.
