Collected Prose of Robert Frost

During his lifetime, Robert Frost notoriously resisted collecting his prose--going so far as to halt the publication of one prepared compilation and to "lose" the transcripts of the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures he delivered at Harvard in 1936. But for all his qualms, Frost conceded to his son that "you can say a lot in prose that verse won't let you say," and that the prose he had written had in fact "made good competition for [his] verse." This volume, the first critical edition of Robert Frost's prose, allows readers and scholars to appreciate the great American author's forays beyond poetry, and to discover in the prose that he did make public--in newspapers, magazines, journals, speeches, and books--the wit, force, and grace that made his poetry famous.The Collected Prose of Robert Frost offers an extensive and illuminating body of work, ranging from juvenilia--Frost's contributions to his high school Bulletin--to the charming "chicken stories" he wrote as a young family man for The Eastern Poultryman and Farm Poultry, to such famous essays as "The Figure a Poem Makes" and the speeches and contributions to magazines solicited when he had become the Grand Old Man of American letters. Gathered, annotated, and cross-referenced by Mark Richardson, the collection is based on extensive work in archives of Frost's manuscripts. It provides detailed notes on the author's habits of composition and on important textual issues and includes much previously unpublished material. It is a book of boundless appeal and importance, one that should find a home on the bookshelf of anyone interested in Frost.

As a near-comprehensive, definitive, and convenient edition of Frost's prose, The Collected Prose of Robert Frost is an invaluable tool. Its critical introduction and notes are superb--graceful, perspicacious, focused, discriminating, and deeply informed. This edition offers accurate texts and more of Frost's prose than has been gathered elsewhere. It will be definitive., A major contribution to the field, The Collected Prose of Robert Frost is a first-rate work of editorial scholarship, that gains from the editor's comprehensive and intimate familiarity with Frost's life and work, as well as with the vast secondary literature on both. The textual notes provide the best and in many cases, only available account of the textual history of Frost's prose. This volume will fill an important need for anyone interested in Frost's poetry and prose., Frost was a highly prolific if disorganized, writer of prose, penning pieces for newspapers, magazines and events that were never collected in book form during his life. Following The Notebooks of Robert Frost, this volume brings together all the prose written for publication by America's most famous poet...Frost's earthy voice and rigorous intellect are on full display in this essential book for poetry lovers., The book's chronological order and broad scope provide the reader with a full view of Frost's prose. Richardson's real contribution to the field of Frost literature is his enlightening notes section., An untidy but wonderful heap of introductions, dedications, lists, autobiographical sketches and aphorisms. There are stories for children and pieces for presidential inaugurations.

Mark Richardson is Professor of English at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan.