James Branch Cabell wrote a lot about his writing — sometimes it seems that he enjoyed writing about what he had already written as much as or more than writing his celebrated philosophical comedies. This is his last such volume of . . . auto-auctorialism.

Highlights of Cabell’s ruminations in this short book include his thoughts on God and theology, youthful sexual adventure and adultery, and his oddest trilogy, The Nightmare Has Triplets. Of this latter, I am pretty sure that he has done some recycling from the forewords to a few of these books. Interesting admissions include his judgment that he had never “fallen in love” — despite being twice married and (more relevantly) having written about love his entire career.

The design of this edition is first rate. There is a frontispiece featuring a bust of the author sculpted expressly for this production, and Marjorie L. Burke, the authoress of a provocatively titled tome that I have not read, Origin of History as Metaphysic, provides a very Cabellian introduction to this very Cabellian book. Very Cabellian. Fun all around.

N.B. Cabell is at his most breezily elegant, here, though most readers will probably need to keep, while reading, a dictionary nearby. And, you guessed it, I coined the term “auto-auctorialism.” Cabellians may see the logic to it. ( )