… trailing strands in all directions

Letters of Intent — letters of the intense. Keen readers of Cynthia Ozick (are there any other kind?) will of course already have copies of the books from which these often fiery essays have been selected. There’s a broad range of work represented here, from personal essays through to Ozick’s often rather profound philosophical enquiries into the meaning of art and religion — though the inclusion of no fewer than five essays on Henry James, two on Kafka, two on Virginia Woolf and two on Saul Bellow might make one wish for a little more breathing room, a little more room to roam.

But this is a quibble. This is Cynthia Ozick, for goodness sake. And, for goodness sake, if you haven’t read Cynthia Ozick — described by the late David Miller in his affectionate and indeed rather star-struck introduction to this volume as ‘the Athena of America’s literary pantheon, the Emily Dickinson of the Bronx, and one of the most accomplished and graceful literary stylists of her time’ — then really you should.