SOURCE: "Huneker and Other Lost Arts," in The Antioch Review, Vol. 39, No. 4, Fall, 1981, pp. 402-21.

In the following essay, Karlen contemplates Huneker's drift into obscurity following his death and expresses the need to resurrect Huneker's reputation.

If you could resurrect a few writers of the past for one evening's conversation, which ones would you choose? A fascinating game, and not a new one. More than a half century ago, James Gibbons Huneker wrote of "the whimsical notion of Charles Lamb that he would rather see Sir Thomas Browne than Shakespeare.… I have often wondered if the most resounding names in history are the best beloved."

I have a few favorites of my own. I'd rather talk with Kuprin than Tolstoi, with John Aubrey than John Milton. And if I had to pick a few American writers, Huneker himself would be among them. On a scale of literary greatness...