A Life in Letters

In the words of his contemporary, Philip Roth, John Updike was ‘Our time’s greatest man of letters – as brilliant a literary critic and essayist as he was a novelist and short-story writer’.
Over t ...

In the words of his contemporary, Philip Roth, John Updike was ‘Our time’s greatest man of letters – as brilliant a literary critic and essayist as he was a novelist and short-story writer’.
Over the course of his long and immensely productive career, he also proved himself a brilliant correspondent, his letters filled with comic observations, opinions and personal news, told in his characteristically elegant and exquisitely fluid style.
In this sparkling selection of his letters, edited by James Schiff, we can see Updike in real time, capturing every stage of his unspooling life, from P