“. . . James was incapable of observing a distinction between the scientist’s ‘facts’ and the philosopher’s ‘values.’ He thought that every choice we make, including the choice to be…
“General Sherman’s Memoirs are valuable precisely because they strip away the ardor by which the man was judged a saint or a Satan, and restore him as a soldier who knew that, however painful, the shortest course through…
“She knows her own original, fearless, and compassionate mind. What she has, before anything else, is a courageous imagination—one that is bold enough to consider the terrible in human nature without loss of nerve, calm, dignity, or…
“The Library of America has done a great service to Alcott lovers and nineteenth-century literature scholars alike by bringing Louisa May Alcott’s March family trilogy together in a single, beautifully crafted volume.…
“These books follow the war in all its uncertainties and accidents and contingencies. They let us live in the minds of people who didn’t yet know how it would all come out, and while specialists may have long known and studied most of these…
“Here is literary irony at glorious work: The Library of America has issued a gorgeous two-volume collection of novels, American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s, most originally published as cheap paperbacks with…