This book consists of a cluster of epigrams,forty-nine essays on various subjects,a poem dispraising dogmata,and several selections from an unfinished play.
Play and poem and epigrams need (I feel) no comment.
As for my essays—here grouped under three headings: Etcetera, Appreciations,VanityFair—the earliest is dated 1915 and the latest 1957;but more than half of them (comprising much of A Miscellany’s second and most of its third portion) appeared during the twenties in Vanity Fair magazine,having been graciously commissioned by a charming personage named Frank Crowninshield.
Taken ensemble,the forty-nine astonish and cheer and enlighten their progenitor. He’s astonished that,as nearly as anyone can make out,I wrote them. He’s cheered because,while re-reading them,I’ve encountered a great deal of liveliness and nothing dead. Last but not least;he’s enlightened via the realization that,whereas times can merely change,an individual may grow.
—E. E. CUMMINGS