Exiles and Fugitives: The Letters of Jacques and Raissa Maritain, Allen Tate, and Caroline Gordon

Jacques Maritain, the French philosopher, and his wife, the poet Raissa Maritain, became friendly with poet and critic Allen Tate and his wife, the novelist Caroline Gordon, when the Maritains lived in the U.S. during WW II. All four had converted to Catholicism--the Maritains in 1906 (he from a Protestant denomination, she from Judaism), Tate and Gordon in the late '40s. Dunaway, a professor of French at Mercer University in Georgia, has edited the two couples' correspondence from 1944 to 1956 and the letters written after Tate and Gordon's final separation in 1956, during Raissa's fatal illness and death in 1960 and concluding in December 1969. Many of the letters deal with writing and with spiritual issues, reflecting the foursome's shared interest in a literary Christian aesthetic in response to modern secularists; these will interest scholars. However, a fair number of entries are formulaic--brief invitations, congratulatory notes (``This Bollingen prize is but a sign,'' writes Jacques to Tate), cover letters, etc. Photos not seen by PW. (Dec.)