Book cover of Memoirs

Book description

A complete collection of Robert Lowell’s autobiographical prose, from unpublished writings about his youth to reflections on the triumphs and confusions of his adult life.

Robert Lowell's Memoirs is an unprecedented literary discovery: the manuscript of Lowell’s lyrical evocation of his childhood, which was written in the 1950s and has…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Memoirs as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Lowell began this memoir in a mental hospital. He was told it may help him recover from a manic-depressive condition. But he never finished it. He sold the manuscript to Harvard University and there it mouldered away for forty years until editors Steven Gould Axelrod and Grzegorz Kosc resurrected it. Lowell had never meant it to be published. Yet, in this manuscript we discover the bones of his famous poetic work Life Studies, which virtually turned him into one of the greatest of Confessional poets. The manuscript that fell between the cracks demonstrates what a great prose writer Lowell…

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