This volume of personal correspondence takes Warren from the awkwardness of an emerging genius during his fugitive student years at Vanderbilt to the brink of producing great work in a newly appointed post at Louisiana State University. Warren’s letters reveal the author’s tangled relationship with his parents, his delicate health, and the gossip about major literary figures including Allen Tate, John Crowe Ransom, Donald Davidson and Laura Riding. Together, the letters offer a self-protrait of the fledgling artist.