I live for this. What a great volume. White is unequivocally the greatest writer Australia ever produced, and this volume came about as a result of David Marr's landmark biography of White, written with the man's consent and published shortly after his death. Something like 20,000 letters from or to White were found by Marr during this process, and here he reprints a generous selection from across the author's life. From pondering his early novels during WWII (in which, in Europe, he met his lifelong partner Manoly) to his final years sharing his many thoughts on the state of Australian literature, this is a gem of a collection.

I can understand why many reviewers have given this less than 5 stars. This is a supplementary volume for White fans. It will be of interest to those who have read a few of the works, but the story of White's life - and especially of the critical fortunes of his career - only really makes sense in light of his body of work: 12 novels, 3 short story collections, an autobiography, several well-received plays, and one screenplay.

As someone so famously private during his lifetime, we are lucky that White had a change of heart in his final years, and allowed Marr such unfettered access. (If not, his equally reclusive partner would no doubt have imposed strict conditions on these letters after White's death.) The letters are more focused on White's personal life and thoughts about society than on his work but, again, read in tandem with Marr's biography and the canon itself, this makes sense. An endlessly fascinating, self-deprecating, brilliant, thorny, endlessly intellectual mind at work. ( )