Overview

Irving Babbitt (1865–1933) and Paul Elmer More (1864–1937) were the leading lights of the New Humanism, a consequential movement of literary and social criticism in America. Through their writings on literary, educational, cultural, religious, and political topics, they influenced countless important thinkers, such as T.S. Eliot, C.S. Lewis, Russell Kirk, Benedetto Croce, Werner Jaeger, and George Will. Their work became the source of heated public debates in the 1920s and early 1930s. The belligerent criticisms of Babbitt and More—composed by such famous intellectuals as Ernest Hemmingway and H.L. Mencken—have ensured that the New Humanism has seldom been properly appreciated. Humanistic Letters helps remedy this problem, by providing for the first time the extant correspondence of Babbitt and More, which gets to the heart of their intellectual project.  

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9780826222909

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“The New Humanism, an early 20th century intellectual movement led by Irving Babbit, ‘the Buddha of Harvard,’ and Paul More, ‘the hermit of Princeton,’ has been largely forgotten. But Eric Adler's erudite exegesis of their correspondence demonstrates its timeless relevance given that (in Babbit's words) ‘man is in danger of being deprived of every scrap and vestige of his humanity by this working together of romanticism and science.’”—Walter A. McDougall, University of Pennsylvania, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian “New Humanism was one of the most consequential movements of the last century. At long last we now have the literary record of letters between its two principal figures, Irving Babbitt and Paul Elmer More. Eric Adler’s Humanistic Letters is a much-needed window into two highly creative minds at work enlivening tradition and reinvigorating first principles against the dominant currents of their age, and ours. It’s an American cultural treasure.”— Jeffrey O. Nelson, The Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, Publisher and Editor-at-Large of The University Bookman “Irving Babbitt and Paul Elmer More were two of the most profound American thinkers in the twentieth century. They challenged the Zeitgeist and were denied the reputation that they deserved, but an expanding literature testifies to their enduring and now growing influence. Although their letters to each other are numerous, readable, and very illuminating, nobody has published them--until this moment. Eric Adler's edition was worth the wait. It is a model of its kind. It has a lengthy, very informative and insightful introduction, a chronology of the two thinkers, biographies of figures relevant to the correspondence, an elaborate bibliography, and very helpful notes to the letters. Scholars and others will treasure this meticulously wrought and intellectually stimulating volume.”—Claes G. Ryn, author of Will, Imagination and Reason: Babbitt, Croce and the Problem of Reality

"""Irving Babbitt and Paul Elmer More were two of the most profound American thinkers in the twentieth century. They challenged the Zeitgeist and were denied the reputation that they deserved, but an expanding literature testifies to their enduring and now growing influence. Although their letters to each other are numerous, readable, and very illuminating, nobody has published them--until this moment. Eric Adler's edition was worth the wait. It is a model of its kind. It has a lengthy, very informative and insightful introduction, a chronology of the two thinkers, biographies of figures relevant to the correspondence, an elaborate bibliography, and very helpful notes to the letters. Scholars and others will treasure this meticulously wrought and intellectually stimulating volume.""--Claes G. Ryn, author of Will, Imagination and Reason: Babbitt, Croce and the Problem of Reality ""New Humanism was one of the most consequential movements of the last century. At long last we now have the literary record of letters between its two principal figures, Irving Babbitt and Paul Elmer More. Eric Adler's Humanistic Letters is a much-needed window into two highly creative minds at work enlivening tradition and reinvigorating first principles against the dominant currents of their age, and ours. It's an American cultural treasure.""-- Jeffrey O. Nelson, The Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, Publisher and Editor-at-Large of The University Bookman ""The New Humanism, an early 20th century intellectual movement led by Irving Babbit, 'the Buddha of Harvard, ' and Paul More, 'the hermit of Princeton, ' has been largely forgotten. But Eric Adler's erudite exegesis of their correspondence demonstrates its timeless relevance given that (in Babbit's words) 'man is in danger of being deprived of every scrap and vestige of his humanity by this working together of romanticism and science.'""--Walter A. McDougall, University of Pennsylvania, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian"

Author Information

Eric Adler is Chair and Professor of Classics at the University of Maryland. He is the author of three books, including The Battle of the Classics: How a Nineteenth-Century Debate Can Save the Humanities Today and Classics, the Culture Wars, and Beyond.  

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