Glenway Wescott, novelist, short-story writer, essayist, poet, and critic, is a native of Wisconsin. In 1919 he withdrew from the University of Chicago after less than two years' attendance, launching his career as a writer. After several years of travel in the United States and Europe, Wescott settled in France in 1925 and remained for eight years. Though often in Paris during this period, he lived mainly in Villefranche-sur-Mer in the South of France. In 1933 he returned to New York City and divided his time between a New York apartment and the family farm in New Jersey. From 1943 to the present he has lived in rural New Jersey, publishing occasionally, but in no way matching the creative work of his earlier years. Wescott was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1947, initiating a period of public service which has continued to the present. In later years he...