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James Merrill

Bibliography

 

Critical Bibliography

Poetry

    • Jim's Book: A Collection of Poems and Short Stories (privately printed, 1942)

    • The Black Swan (Icarus, 1946)

    • First Poems (Knopf, 1951)

    • Short Stories (Banyan Press, 1954)

    • The Country of a Thousand Years of Peace (Knopf, 1959; rev. ed., Atheneum, 1970)

    • Water Street (Atheneum, 1962)

    • Nights and Days (Atheneum, 1966)

    • The Fire Screen (Atheneum, 1969)

    • Braving the Elements (Atheneum, 1972)

    • Yannina (Phoenix Book Shop, 1973)

    • The Yellow Pages: 59 Poems (Temple Bar Bookshop, 1974)

    • Divine Comedies (Atheneum, 1976)

    • Metamorphosis of 741 (Banyan Press, 1977)

    • Mirabell: Books of Number (Atheneum, 1978)

    • Scripts for the Pageant (Atheneum, 1980)

    • The Changing Light at Sandover (Atheneum, 1980)

    • From the First Nine: Poems 1946-1976 (Atheneum, 1982)

    • From the Cutting-Room Floor (U of Nebraska P, 1983)

    • Late Settings (Atheneum, 1985)

    • The Inner Room (Knopf, 1988)

    • Selected Poems, 1946-1985 (Knopf, 1992)

    • A Scattering of Salts (Knopf, 1995)

    • Self-Portrait in Tyvek(TM) Windbreaker (Dublin) 1995

    • Selected Poems (Manchester, UK) 1996

    • Collected Poems (2001)

Fiction

  • The Seraglio (Knopf, 1957; repr. Atheneum, 1987)

  • The (Diblos) Notebook (Atheneum, 1965; repr.Dalkey Archive Press, 1994)

Prose

  • Recitative: Prose (North Point Press, 1986)

  • A Different Person: A Memoir (Knopf, 1993, repr. Harper, 1994)

Drama

  • The Immortal Husband, in Playbook (New Directions, 1956)

  • The Bait, in Artists Theatre (Grove, 1960)

  • The Image Maker: A Play in One Act (Sea Cliff Press, 1986)

Secondary Sources: Works About James Merrill

  • Adams, Don. James Merrill's Poetic Quest. Contributions to the Study of World Literature 81. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997.

  • Berger, Charles. "Merrill and Pynchon: Our Apocalyptic Scribes." In Lehman 282-297.

  • ---. "Mirabell: Conservative Epic." In Bloom 181-188.

  • Bloom, Harold, ed. James Merrill, New York: Chelsea House, 1985.

  • Brisman, Leslie. "Merrill's Yeats." In Bloom 189-198.

  • Donoghue, Denis. "What the Ouija Board Said." Polito 178-181.

  • Halpern, Nick. Everyday and Prophetic: The Poetry of Lowell, Ammons, Merrill and Rich. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 2003.

  • Jackson, David. "Lending a Hand." James Merrill: Essays in Criticism. Eds. David Lehman and Charles Berger. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1983. 298-305.

  • Jacoff, Rachel. "Merrill and Dante." In Lehman 145-158.

  • Keene, Ann T. "James Merrill's Life." Modern American Poetry. Cary Nelson, ed. 17 December 2003 .

  • Keller, Lynn. Re-Making It New: Contemporary American Poetry and the Modernist Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1987.

  • Lehman, David, ed. James Merrill: Essays in Criticism, Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1983.

  • Lehman, David. "Elemental Bravery: The Unity of James Merrill's Poetry." In Lehman 23-60.

  • Lurie, Alison. Familiar Spirits: A Memoir of James Merrill and David Jackson. New York: Viking, 2001.

  • Materer, Timothy. James Merrill's Apocalypse. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 2000.

  • Moffett, Judith. James Merrill: An Introduction to the Poetry. New York: Columbia UP, 1984.

  • Polito, Robert. A Reader's Guide to James Merrill's The Changing Light at Sandover. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1994.

  • Sacks, Peter. "The Divine Translation: Elegiac Aspects of The Changing Light at Sandover." In Lehman 159-185.

  • Sword, Helen. "James Merrill, Sylvia Plath, and the Poetics of the Ouija." American Literature 66 (September 1994): 553-572.

  • Vendler, Helen. "James Merrill." In Bloom 69- 93.

  • ---. "Mirabell: Books of Number." A Reader's Guide to James Merrill's The Changing Light at Sandover. In Polito 162-72.

  • White, Heather. "An Interview with James Merrill." Ploughshares 21 (Winter 95/96) 4:190-96.

  • Yenser, Stephen. The Consuming Myth: The Work of James Merrill. Cambridge: