Paper Trail: Selected Prose, 1965-2003

Adroit, inventive essays culled from a lifetime of literature

For decades Richard Howard's stylish, deeply informed criticism has enlightened and entertained his devoted audiences. Here is a comprehensive selection of his finest essays on a splendid range of subjects--from American poets like Emily Dickinson and Marianne Moore to French artists such as Rodin and Michel Delacroix, from modern sculpture to the photography of the human body. And Howard brings to his consideration of French literature a rare wisdom drawn from his celebrated work as a translator of Stendhal and Gide, Barthes and Cocteau, Yourcenar and Gracq.

The New York Times - Brad Leithauser

… Howard's essays, more than most, are about process -- the wayward, spontaneous flux of a lively mind in headlong literary discourse, often interrupting itself. They have the authentic feel of a speaking voice -- even if it is impossible to imagine anybody else speaking quite this way.

Richard Howard is a poet, scholar, teacher, critic, and translator. Paper Trail is published simultaneously by FSG with Howard's Inner Voices: Selected Poems, 1963-2003. He teaches at Columbia University and is poetry editor of The Paris Review.