The Outermost Dream: Literary Sketches Paperback - 1997

The Outermost Dream brings together essays and reviews by William Maxwell, one of America's foremost writers and editors. Maxwell chose deliberately to focus on biography, memoir, diaries, and correspondence when reviewing books: "what people said and did and wore and ate and hoped for and were afraid of, and in detail after often unimaginable detail they refresh our idea of existence and hold oblivion at arm's length." In reading his reviews, we are struck by Maxwell's skill in choosing the one particular, the haunting moment, that further illuminates our understanding of the power of an individual life. His discernment is equally telling whether writing about literary luminaries such as Virginia Woolf, Lord Byron, E.B. White, Isak Dinesen, or delving into the diaries of an unknown Victorian curate with vivid dreams of murder and mayhem.

"Maxwell writes with relish about all the quirks and quiddities of human lives, with warmth about the honorable things that men and women do, with regret for the rest.... On every page there is a quiet observation, made with deceptive ease, that will ravish the reader."--The Boston Globe

"In this wonderful volume we get Mr. Maxwell's clear prose, his magical narrative and the attractions of his quirky mind."--The New York Times Book Review

William Maxwell worked with many celebrated writers as a longtime editor for the New Yorker. He is himself the author of several books of fiction, including They Came Like Swallows; The Folded Leaf; So Long, See You Tomorrow; and Time Will Darken It. Maxwell lives in New York City.