Emerson remarked that the best writers often have the shortest biographies. The genius "draws up the ladder after him," and the world, which had consigned him to obscurity during his lifetime, "sees the works and asks in vain for a history."

Whatever judgment may ultimately be passed upon him, not much more than his works is ever likely to be known of Charles Reznikoff. He left no fervent disciples. The record he wished to preserve is the one he made himself, but it is quite detailed, and will surely have to do for those readers who, treasuring his memory, might like to know more.

Reznikoff was born on 31 August 1894 in--as he himself called it--the Jewish ghetto of Brownsville, in Brooklyn, New York. His parents, who are depicted in Family Chronicle (1963), were Sarah Yetta Wolvovsky Reznikoff and Nathan Reznikoff, both immigrant Jews who had recently come to the United...