Thomas Merton and James Laughlin
Thomas Merton may have seemed an unlikely candidate for a best-selling author. Cloistered in a remote Kentucky monastery, Merton struggled as a young man to reconcile the contemplative life he sought as a monk and his very public passion for writing. Publisher James Laughlin saw Merton's talent and played the muse, encouraging him with the poems, essays, and diaries of other writers and publishing nearly everything Merton sent in return.\ Ironically, the very society Merton rejected upon...
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The remarkable development of Thomas Merton—monk, poet, and social critic—as documented in nearly thirty years of correspondence with his publisher.Library JournalNew Directions, an enterprise created by Laughlin, has served as the publishing house for many seminal figures in 20th-century literature. This usefully and unobtrusively footnoted volume, edited by Cooper (American thought and language, Michigan State Univ.), brings together the most representative of the extant correspondence between Laughlin and his author Thomas Merton. As an addition to Merton's growing body of work (most recently, Dancing in the Water of Life, LJ 6/1/97, Volume 5 of his journals), it offers a cogent perspective on Merton the writer. The development of his thought and his grappling with the thorny questions of what are appropriate avenues for exploration while remaining true to his vocation all add further dimension to our understanding of this very complex and irrepressible figure. While the majority of the letters are Merton's to Laughlin, the latter nonetheless emerges as an important nurturing force. For Merton collections and those concerned with 20th-century literary history.Mark Woodhouse, Elmira Coll. Lib., N.Y.
Introduction Notes On the Text Acknowledgments Letters Epilogue Appendix: Thomas Merton--A Portrait by James Laughlin Selected Bibliography: Books by James Laughlin and Thomas Merton Index
\ Library JournalNew Directions, an enterprise created by Laughlin, has served as the publishing house for many seminal figures in 20th-century literature. This usefully and unobtrusively footnoted volume, edited by Cooper (American thought and language, Michigan State Univ.), brings together the most representative of the extant correspondence between Laughlin and his author Thomas Merton. As an addition to Merton's growing body of work (most recently, Dancing in the Water of Life, LJ 6/1/97, Volume 5 of his journals), it offers a cogent perspective on Merton the writer. The development of his thought and his grappling with the thorny questions of what are appropriate avenues for exploration while remaining true to his vocation all add further dimension to our understanding of this very complex and irrepressible figure. While the majority of the letters are Merton's to Laughlin, the latter nonetheless emerges as an important nurturing force. For Merton collections and those concerned with 20th-century literary history.Mark Woodhouse, Elmira Coll. Lib., N.Y.\ \
