In this collection of his essays and a sampling of his letters, John Jay Chapman (1862-1933) embraces the world at large. Predicting the depersonalization of twentieth-century society, Chapman argues that "a civilization based upon a commerce which is in all its parts corruptly managed will present a social life which is unintelligent and mediocre, made up of people afraid of each other, whose ideas are shopworn, whose manners are self-conscious."

Chapman "should be studied more carefully and at full length," Edmund Wilson wrote in 1929, "but in the meantime, what is most important is to have his essays made accessible. . . . If his books were reprinted and read, we should recognize that we possess in John Jay Chapman--by reason of the intensity of the spirit, the brilliance of the literary gift and the continuity of the thought which they embody--an American classic."

Jacques Barzun has observed, "We have produced very few great critics, but John Jay Chapman equals any of his foreign contemporaries." An American original, Chapman is a tonic to cynicism and an antidote to a society gone flaccid and complacent.

"Chapman is one of those rare 'men of letters' who survives his own time by the sheer energy and vigor of his prose. It is a gift to our literary culture to have Chapman back in print." -- Andrew Delbanco

Subjects:
Literature, American / History, Intellectual / Philosophy