His list is filled with authors I love and respect, yet Bloom is tied to a type of mentality that kept me out of going further in my degree. It may be the case of a book project that was assigned an author, title and completion date but never got written or approved for publication.What makes Bloom such a complex animal for me academically is that many of the works he has treasured, I also treasure. Anyone knowing anything about the circumstances of this “publication” is invited to comment below. Neither the Library of Congress nor the New York Public Library has in its catalogue a book by that title and author/editor combination nor that ISBN. Harold Bloom is listed as author but might have been the intended editor. It even has an ISBN number: 978-1555463533 and is described as appearing in “Modern Critical Views, Series 2”. One of these is entitled “Evelyn Waugh” and is said by both Google Books and Amazon to have been published on. Other contemporaries of Waugh among the British prose writers named in this appendix include Elizabeth Bowen, Henry Green, Graham Greene, George Orwell, and David Jones.īloom was also engaged as editor for several years from 1989 in an ambitious project involving several hundred critical works published by the Chelsea House Press (later acquired by or merged with Facts on File). The books listed under Waugh’s name in the prophetic appendix are A Handful of Dust, Scoop, Vile Bodies and Put Out More Flags. Waugh is, however, included in Appendix D: The Chaotic Age: A Canonical Prophecy. The listed authors who might be deemed Waugh’s contemporaries are Proust, Joyce, Virginia Woolf and Kafka. The short list of 20 some “canonical” authors does not include Waugh. Waugh is also listed in an appendix to what may be Bloom’s best known book, The Western Canon: the Books and School of the Ages (1994). Sometimes, when I am reading Smolett, I wish he had been able to read the Evelyn Waugh of Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies, A Handful of Dust, because I think Waugh would have been a good influence on him. One mention comes in connection with Bloom’s discussion of Tobias Smolett: Waugh is mentioned but there is no chapter devoted to his writing. He did write at least one full length book devoted to novels. If you choose to consult only one, read that written by Garner.īloom wrote widely but clearly was happiest writing about poetry. The other is “An Appreciation” by Dwight Garner who also frequently reviews books for the Times and writes on literary matters. One is by Dinitia Smith and is a standard but fairly detailed obituary. There are several notices but perhaps the best are those in the New York Times. The American literary critic and Yale Professor of the Humanities Harold Bloom died earlier this week at the age of 89.
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