This book may well be the standard work on e. e. cummings in our time. Mr. Friedman, the outstanding authority on the poet, has provided us with a comprehensive view and a handbook-survey to guide the reader toward a fuller appreciation of cummings’s work. The book traces the poet’s development as a writer: where and when Cummings found his major themes, their significance, and where and when he mastered his characteristic way of embodying these themes.