Carrying on loving: Elizabeth Hardwick’s and Robert Lowell’s remarkable correspondence throughout the 1970s

Since Robert Lowell’s sudden death in 1977 his critical reputation has suffered from the usual post-mortem slump. Interest in Lowell’s life, however, remains as strong as during his celebrity heyday, when he graced the cover of Time magazine and marched on the Pentagon with Norman Mailer. A biography (excellent, by Ian Hamilton), an edition of his letters, and a volume of the correspondence between Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop are all firmly in print. Now we have The Dolphin Letters: 1970–1979, which includes both Lowell’s letters to his wife Elizabeth Hardwick (during and after the dissolution of their marriage) and her letters to him, long thought to have been lost or destroyed.

The disruption at the heart of this collection of correspondence began when Lowell came to England in April 1970, first as a visiting fellow at All Souls, Oxford, then as a don at Essex University. After Hardwick had returned to New York with their daughter, Lowell met Caroline Blackwood at a party and experienced a 50-year-old’s version of a coup de foudre — which was immediately reciprocated.