Edmund Wilson’s printed note, a response to a student group asking him to do a reading, breathes of another world. He added in a handwritten scrawl that he doesn’t do “live readings either when I’m offered a very large fee.” And the printed card itself lists a bevy of activities that he declines. Unlike participants here and now – myself and the others – he doesn’t “contribute to or take part in symposiums or ‘panels’ of any kind,” “give interviews” or speeches. He is an ornery writer, devoted to his craft.
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