Six Introductions That Will Change How You Read These Classics
In his excellent introduction to Edith Wharton’s The Writing of Fiction, the author and critic Brandon Taylor offers an observation that bears repeating: Literature from the past may contain dated worlds and ideas, but we can and should engage with it. Wharton’s works, for example, still present “some startling revelation about the way we live and write today,” he explains. Older writing can also give us “something to argue against.” Classic texts might remain static, but they are revolutionized over time by readers’ changing experiences and offer us the unique chance to be in “capacious communion” with them. Fresh introductions can help us achieve that intimacy.
Literary superstars such as Taylor have been eager to take on the role of both guide and medium, providing front matter that links the past with the present by placing classic texts in a contemporary context. Recently, readers have been treated to in , on Joanne Greenberg’s, and Margo Jefferson schooling us on Gwendolyn Brooks’s . Toni Morrison, Rachel Cusk, Rachel Kushner, Jennifer Egan, and Hilary Mantel have all written introductions.
