[close] With the publication of The Outermost Dream, a collection of essays by William Maxwell, Graywolf Press's Rediscovery Series has saved from obscurity yet another literary jewel. Most of these pieces originally appeared in the New Yorker, where Maxwell was a fiction editor for 40 years, on the occasion of the release of a biography, memoir, diary, or collection of correspondence by or about a noted (or not-so-noted) author. Maxwell brings such a stunning combination of intellect and passion to his subject matter that his essays (one can hardly call them mere book reviews) are, as Maxwell expects of great writing, astonishing. Each is a sharply focused miniature, allowing the reader to enter the world that Maxwell describes, whether it be that of a humble 19th-century curate-cum-diarist or the young V. S. Pritchett, who published his first work, a joke in the Paris Herald, while working as a stock clerk for a photographic-plate manufacturer. It is a rare pleasure to find oneself in such capable hands. [close]