<div><i>The Wound and the Bow</i> collects seven wonderful essays on the delicate theme of the relation between art and suffering by the legendary literary and social critic, Edmund Wilson (1885-1972). This welcome re-issue--one of several for this title--testifies to the value publishers put on it and to a reluctance among them ever to let it stay out of print for very long.<br /> <br /> The subjects Wilson treats--Dickens and Kipling, Edith Wharton and Ernest Hemingway, Joyce and Sophocles, and perhaps most surprising, Jacques Casanova--reveal the range and dexterity of his interests, his historical grasp, his learning, and his intellectual curiosity.<br /> <br /> Wilson's essays did not give rise to a new body of literary theory nor to a new school of literary criticism. Rather, he animated or reanimated the reputations of the artists he treated and furthered the quest for the sources of their literary artistry and craftsmanship.<br /> <br /> F. Scott Fitzgerald called Wilson "the literary conscience of my generation." Today's readers of <i>The Wound and the Bow</i> may want to make the claim for their generation as well.</div>