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James Merrill

Author profile

born

March 03, 1926 in New York, New York, The United States

died

February 06, 1995

gender

male

genre

Poetry, Literature & Fiction, Biographies & Memoirs

About this author

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James Ingram Merrill was born on March 3, 1926, and died on February 6, 1995. From the mid-1950s on, he lived in Stonington, Connecticut, and for extended periods he also had houses in Athens and Key West. From The Black Swan (1946) through A Scattering of Salts (1995), he wrote twelve books of poems, ten of them published in trade editions, as well as The Changing Light at Sandover (1982). He also published two plays, The Immortal Husband (1956) and The Bait (1960); two novels, The Seraglio (1957, reissued in 1987) and The (Diblos) Notebook (1965, reissued 1994); a book of essays, interviews, and reviews, Recitative (1986); and a memoir, A Different Person (1993). Over the years, he was the winner of numerous awards for his poetry, includi...more

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Books by James Merrill

Average rating: 4.16 · 548 ratings · 46 reviews · 27 distinct works

	Collected Poems by James Merrill, Stephen Yenser (Editor), J.D. McClatchy (Editor) 4.23 avg rating — 181 ratings — published 2001 — 2 editions	My rating:
	The Changing Light at Sandover by James Merrill, Stephen Yenser (Editor), J.D. McClatchy (Editor) 4.30 avg rating — 177 ratings — 6 editions	My rating:
	Selected Poems, 1946-1985 4.03 avg rating — 37 ratings — published 1992 — 3 editions	My rating:
	A Scattering of Salts 4.00 avg rating — 29 ratings — published 1995 — 3 editions	My rating:
	A Different Person: A Memoir 3.44 avg rating — 25 ratings — published 1993 — 3 editions	My rating:
	Selected Poems by James Merrill, Stephen Yenser (Editor), J.D. McClatchy (Editor) 3.82 avg rating — 17 ratings — published 2008	My rating:
	Divine Comedies 4.08 avg rating — 13 ratings — published 1976 — 4 editions	My rating:
	Collected Prose 4.11 avg rating — 9 ratings — published 2004 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Nights and Days 4.12 avg rating — 8 ratings — published 1966	My rating:
	The (Diblos) Notebook 3.56 avg rating — 9 ratings — 2 editions	My rating:

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Quotes by James Merrill

“The day is breaking someone else's heart.”
― James Merrill

4 people liked it

“Lost, is it, buried? One more missing piece?

But nothing's lost. Or else: all is translation
And every bit of us is lost in it
(Or found — I wander through the ruin of S
Now and then, wondering at the peacefulness)
And in that loss a self-effacing tree,
Color of context, imperceptibly
Rustling with its angel, turns the waste
To shade and fiber, milk and memory.”
― James Merrill

3 people liked it

“Beneath my incredulity
All at once is flowing
Joy, the flash of the unbaited hook --
Yes, yes, it fits, it's right, it had to be!
Intuition weightless and ongoing
Like stanzas in a book
Or golden scales in the melodic brook --”
― James Merrill, Scripts For The Pageant

1 person liked it

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