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The Triple Thinkers: Twelve Essays on Literary Subjects
The Triple Twelve Essays on Literary Subjects contains some of Edmund Wilson's most significant and brilliant writings on topics and authors ranging from Pushkin, A. E. Housman, Flaubert, Henry James, Marxism, poetry and more.
270 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1962
About the author
Edmund Wilson
177 books164 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database. See also physicist Edmund Wilson.
Edmund Wilson Jr. was a towering figure in 20th-century American literary criticism, known for his expansive intellect, stylistic clarity, and commitment to serious literary and political engagement. Over a prolific career, Wilson wrote for Vanity Fair, The New Republic, The New Yorker, and The New York Review of Books, shaping the critical conversation on literature, politics, and culture. His major critical works—such as Axel's Castle and Patriotic Gore—combined literary analysis with historical insight, and he ventured boldly into subjects typically reserved for academic specialists, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, Native American cultures, and the American Civil War.
Wilson was also the author of fiction, memoirs, and plays, though his influence rested most strongly on his literary essays and political writing. He was instrumental in promoting the reputations of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Vladimir Nabokov, and many others. Despite his friendships with several of these authors, his criticism could be unflinching, even scathing—as seen in his public dismissal of H. P. Lovecraft and J. R. R. Tolkien. His combative literary style often drew attention, and his exacting standards for writing, along with his distaste for popular or commercial literature, placed him in a tradition of high-minded literary seriousness.
Beyond the realm of letters, Wilson was politically active, aligning himself at times with socialist ideals and vocally opposing Cold War policies and the Vietnam War. His principled refusal to pay income tax in protest of U.S. militarization led to a legal battle and a widely read protest book.
Wilson was married four times and had several significant personal and intellectual relationships, including with Fitzgerald and Nabokov. He also advocated for the preservation and celebration of American literary heritage, a vision realized in the creation of the Library of America after his death. For his contributions to American letters, Wilson received multiple honors, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His legacy endures through his extensive body of work, which remains a touchstone for literary scholars and general readers alike.
Edmund Wilson Jr. was a towering figure in 20th-century American literary criticism, known for his expansive intellect, stylistic clarity, and commitment to serious literary and political engagement. Over a prolific career, Wilson wrote for Vanity Fair, The New Republic, The New Yorker, and The New York Review of Books, shaping the critical conversation on literature, politics, and culture. His major critical works—such as Axel's Castle and Patriotic Gore—combined literary analysis with historical insight, and he ventured boldly into subjects typically reserved for academic specialists, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, Native American cultures, and the American Civil War.
Wilson was also the author of fiction, memoirs, and plays, though his influence rested most strongly on his literary essays and political writing. He was instrumental in promoting the reputations of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Vladimir Nabokov, and many others. Despite his friendships with several of these authors, his criticism could be unflinching, even scathing—as seen in his public dismissal of H. P. Lovecraft and J. R. R. Tolkien. His combative literary style often drew attention, and his exacting standards for writing, along with his distaste for popular or commercial literature, placed him in a tradition of high-minded literary seriousness.
Beyond the realm of letters, Wilson was politically active, aligning himself at times with socialist ideals and vocally opposing Cold War policies and the Vietnam War. His principled refusal to pay income tax in protest of U.S. militarization led to a legal battle and a widely read protest book.
Wilson was married four times and had several significant personal and intellectual relationships, including with Fitzgerald and Nabokov. He also advocated for the preservation and celebration of American literary heritage, a vision realized in the creation of the Library of America after his death. For his contributions to American letters, Wilson received multiple honors, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His legacy endures through his extensive body of work, which remains a touchstone for literary scholars and general readers alike.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 16, 2020
Και μόνο το ότι ο Wilson αποτελεί τον προκάτοχο του G. Steiner στο New Yorker είναι ήδη αρκετό.
Μοναδικό μειονέκτημα ο μικρός όγκος του βιβλίου. Θα προτιμούσα ακόμα περισσότερα κείμενα.
Μοναδικό μειονέκτημα ο μικρός όγκος του βιβλίου. Θα προτιμούσα ακόμα περισσότερα κείμενα.
July 23, 2018
I read this book in Africa and mentioned it in my review of "Of Human Bondage” which I was reading at the same time. Edmund Wilson’s “Triple Thinkers” introduced me to the joys of literary criticism-light. (I say “light” because I make no pretension of being an educated serious pundit of literature familiar with the latest theories of what literature means, i.e., I am no Edmund Wilson.)
Triple Thinkers led me much later to read “New Guide to Modern World Literature” by Martin Seymour-Smith and later to “Reader's Guide to Twentieth Century Literature” by Peter Parker and Frank Kermode . In my review of “New Guide…” I wrote the following:
“I found this book in the reference section of the McLean Virginia Library. When we moved to Dhahran, I continued reading a used copy that I had purchased. It took me 2 years to read this book twice while I studied in detail mostly the new authors that Martin Seymour-Smith introduced to me from all over the world.
In fact, based on his reviews and reviews of reviews country-by-country I formulated my own system of critiquing any book that I might want to read in the future. Before this book, I had gone from book to book in a sort of fog, like most of us do without the benefit of professional, objective, time-tested critiques.
Since the "New Guide to Modern World Literature", I have read similar high-quality critical works and incorporated information on new authors into my system that I have now created. “New Guide to Modern… “ I would say has been one of the most important books that I have ever read. I rarely sit down with an inferior work by authors who are popularly touted as great but who do not pass the test of time and analysis by the literati and intellectuals who research trends and style in literature.”
If one reads Edmund Wilson, I believe that they will also want to read similar works of criticism to discover what else is out there rather than depend on commercial advertising or the opinion of a friend to determine what you should read next.
Triple Thinkers led me much later to read “New Guide to Modern World Literature” by Martin Seymour-Smith and later to “Reader's Guide to Twentieth Century Literature” by Peter Parker and Frank Kermode . In my review of “New Guide…” I wrote the following:
“I found this book in the reference section of the McLean Virginia Library. When we moved to Dhahran, I continued reading a used copy that I had purchased. It took me 2 years to read this book twice while I studied in detail mostly the new authors that Martin Seymour-Smith introduced to me from all over the world.
In fact, based on his reviews and reviews of reviews country-by-country I formulated my own system of critiquing any book that I might want to read in the future. Before this book, I had gone from book to book in a sort of fog, like most of us do without the benefit of professional, objective, time-tested critiques.
Since the "New Guide to Modern World Literature", I have read similar high-quality critical works and incorporated information on new authors into my system that I have now created. “New Guide to Modern… “ I would say has been one of the most important books that I have ever read. I rarely sit down with an inferior work by authors who are popularly touted as great but who do not pass the test of time and analysis by the literati and intellectuals who research trends and style in literature.”
If one reads Edmund Wilson, I believe that they will also want to read similar works of criticism to discover what else is out there rather than depend on commercial advertising or the opinion of a friend to determine what you should read next.
August 17, 2026
A collection of essays from the great American critic on writers including Henry James, Bernard Shaw, Flaubert, Ben Jonson and Pushkin, together with some reminiscences. The essays on James and Shaw are works of literature in their own right and the essay on that strange man A. E. Houseman is particularly entertaining.
Wilson sets out the basis of his criticism in the essay on The Historical Interpretation of Literature when he explains that he seeks to identifying those works which best 'give a meaning to our experience... A lyric gives us nothing but a pattern imposed on the expression of a feeling; but this pattern of metrical qualities and of consonants and vowels that balance has the effect of reducing the feeling ... to something orderly, symmetrical, and pleasing; and it also relates this feeling to the more impressive scheme, works it into the larger texture, of the body of poetic art. The discord has been resolved, the anomaly subjected to discipline. And this control of the emotion by the poet has the effect at second-hand of making it easier for the reader to manage his own emotions.'
The sheer quality of his criticism is revealed by this telling observation from his essay on Bernard Shaw comparing the major English and Irish writers of his day, "The Irish of Shaw's period enjoyed in the field of literature, certain special advantages over the English, due to the fact that, since Irish society was still mainly in the pre-industrial stage, they were closer to eighteenth-century standards. If we compare Shaw, Yeats and Joyce to, say, Galsworthy, Wells, and Bennett, we are struck at once by the extent to which these latter writers have suffered from their submergence in the commercial world. In their worst phases of sentimentality and philistinism, there is almost nothing to choose between them and the frankly trashy popular novelist; whereas the Irish have preserved for English literature classical qualities of hardness and elegance." While Shaw, Yeats and Joyce are still major voices in English literature, who now reads, let alone studies, the three English writers?
A final observation, the essays are immersed in the modish thinkers of the day, particularly Marx and Freud. Left-wing intellectuals of the time thought their systems explained everything about Man whether internal (Freud) or external (Marx). Both are now discredited, but back then everything was bent to their dictates.
Wilson sets out the basis of his criticism in the essay on The Historical Interpretation of Literature when he explains that he seeks to identifying those works which best 'give a meaning to our experience... A lyric gives us nothing but a pattern imposed on the expression of a feeling; but this pattern of metrical qualities and of consonants and vowels that balance has the effect of reducing the feeling ... to something orderly, symmetrical, and pleasing; and it also relates this feeling to the more impressive scheme, works it into the larger texture, of the body of poetic art. The discord has been resolved, the anomaly subjected to discipline. And this control of the emotion by the poet has the effect at second-hand of making it easier for the reader to manage his own emotions.'
The sheer quality of his criticism is revealed by this telling observation from his essay on Bernard Shaw comparing the major English and Irish writers of his day, "The Irish of Shaw's period enjoyed in the field of literature, certain special advantages over the English, due to the fact that, since Irish society was still mainly in the pre-industrial stage, they were closer to eighteenth-century standards. If we compare Shaw, Yeats and Joyce to, say, Galsworthy, Wells, and Bennett, we are struck at once by the extent to which these latter writers have suffered from their submergence in the commercial world. In their worst phases of sentimentality and philistinism, there is almost nothing to choose between them and the frankly trashy popular novelist; whereas the Irish have preserved for English literature classical qualities of hardness and elegance." While Shaw, Yeats and Joyce are still major voices in English literature, who now reads, let alone studies, the three English writers?
A final observation, the essays are immersed in the modish thinkers of the day, particularly Marx and Freud. Left-wing intellectuals of the time thought their systems explained everything about Man whether internal (Freud) or external (Marx). Both are now discredited, but back then everything was bent to their dictates.
March 20, 2017
Wilson is, to my knowledge, the last of the great non-academic literary critics. He was capable of reading most European literature in the original language, and had read through (what seems to be) several libraries worth of books. This book gathers some of his essays on various topics; most of which benefit from his insight and shrewd analysis. He was not, like other critics, a systematic thinker-- by that I mean that he did not invent a system-- but he had the uncanny ability to read a text and point out an obvious feature that a casual reader misses, and had read so widely that he was capable of making connections between texts would escape the eyes of less omnivorous readers .
August 6, 2023
A damn shame we don’t talk enough about Edmund Wilson. Fascinating, compulsively readable cat. He doesn’t condescend; his imagined audience, you can tell from the prose, is a well-balanced mix of the specialist and the beginner. Loved his James, Pushkin, Flaubert, and Marxism essays. He breaks it DOWN…
February 17, 2010
This was actually one of my favorite books of literary essays. Edmund Wilson really knows how to highlight the best aspects of a writer.
December 9, 2015
Αρκετά ενδιαφέρουσες απόψεις&οπτικές.
Επικεντρώθηκα σε συγκεκριμένα κεφάλαια σχετικά με την Λογοτεχνία,την Ιστορία&την Πολιτική.
Επικεντρώθηκα σε συγκεκριμένα κεφάλαια σχετικά με την Λογοτεχνία,την Ιστορία&την Πολιτική.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews