SOURCE: “Witness for the Prosecution,” in Times Literary Supplement, April 30, 1999, p. 26.

In the following review of The Essential Gore Vidal, Brownrigg praises Vidal's diverse and provocative oeuvre, though finds shortcomings with the volume's critical introductions and selections by editor Fred Kaplan.

Repackaging is one of the finer arts of publishing. How to recast a familiar author in such a way as to tempt old admirers and new readers both, without seeming too mercenary about it? It is not as though we haven’t had much of Gore Vidal in print recently: the past six years have seen publication of his award-winning volume of essays United States: Essays 1952–92; of his acerbic and entertaining memoir Palimpsest; of his latest novel, The Smithsonian Institution, and a reissue of his controversial 1948 novel, The City and the Pillar, along with some early stories. In Britain last year, it was hard to avoid Vidal...