Pure Reason: Poems

by Nikos Stangos

An illustrated volume of poetic works by an influential late editor features pieces rooted in specifics about his life that address a broad range of philosophical issues, in a collection that is complemented by artwork contributions by noted painters and sculptors who worked with him.

116 pages, Hardcover

First published December 17, 2007

About the author

Born in Athens, Greece in 1936 to a well-to-do Greek family - his father attended MIT - Stangos was sent to the United States for much of his education, receiving a BA from Denison University, earning an MA from Wesleyan and doing graduate work in philosophy at Harvard. Nothing if not cosmopolitan, he finally settled in London, where he eventually became a poetry editor at Penguin and, later, a director for Thames & Hudson, with responsibility for many of that company's widely admired art books. In 1965 Stangos met the American-born In writer David Plante, and the two young men fell in love and remained partners for nearly 40 years. The Pure Lover: A Memoir of Grief is Plante's re-creation of their now-vanished life together. Stangos died of cancer in 2004.
- adapted from Michael Dirda's Washington Post article, "Elegy to a Lost Love"