It's said that Art Tatum's technique persuaded a great many aspiring young pianists to become insurance salesmen. Edmund Wilson's chops were equally phenomenal; not as sheerly, immediately dazzling, perhaps, but in range, erudition, penetration, clarity and unfussy elegance, no less jaw-dropping. And just as Tatum's multivolume The Complete Pablo Solo Masterpieces is one of the summits of piano jazz, the Library of America's new two-volume issue of Wilson's essays and reviews from the 1920s, '30s and '40s is one of the summits of twentieth-century literary criticism.
