Paul Mariani

The Lost Puritan

"Thorough and just. . . . Quietly, surely in touch with itsdistinguished subject."—Richard Wilbur

Robert Lowell's poetry radically altered the American literarylandscape, combining as it did family drama and an apocalyptic view of the history of our times. He won three Pulitzer Prizesand two National Book Awards for poetry. Married three times,always to writers, he had his dark side, suffering from cripplingbouts of manic depression and alcoholism.

Using hundreds of Lowell's unpublished manuscripts and letters,and dozens of interviews, Paul Mariani has given us a balanced,passionate, and readable life, capturing the man, his age, andhis place in literary history.

"[Mariani's] vigorous narrative style sparkles with rich details. . . . These pages bring out the sheer interestingness of Lowell's mindas it is encountered in letters, prose reflections, and in a lifetimes of poems."—William Pritchard