calling for little amplification or clarification in the form of notes. These have consequently been held to a minimum. When Crane, for example, announces a decision, he bathes it in such a sea of rationalization and background that its origins, its validity, and its likely conclusion are all too evident to the reader. One is, indeed, encouraged to speculate whether the tremendous amount of energy involved in the production of so vast a profusion of details for even the most trivial of communications did not drain away some of the feeling and thought that might more happily have been incorporated in poems. Strangely enough, however, it is apparent that the quantity and quality of Crane’s letters were not negatively, but positively related to his poetic output. A correlation of the letters with the history of Crane’s productivity reveals that it was precisely during periods of great poetic fertility and well-being that his most evocative and profound letters were composed. An illustration of this symbiotic relationship between the poetry and the prose, surely a phenomenon which demonstrates how organic and deep-seated was the urge for literary expression animating him, is the remarkable series of letters written to Gorham Munson between 1919 and 1923, when Crane perfected his control of a mature, individual language and music and composed some of his most striking lyrics. The highly-charged group of letters which Crane sent off to Waldo Frank from the Isle of Pines in 1926, while so feverishly engaged in molding several brilliant sections of _The Bridge_, is another relevant example. The self-sufficiency of Crane’s letters has made it less disappointing for the editor to be unable to include correspondence addressed to him, or to make extracts from it, as a complementary balance and check. Because of Crane’s peripatetic career, letters he received were left behind in the boarding houses, steamship cabins, and hotels wherein he spent his days. A more drastic reduction in the number of remaining letters was apparently accomplished by his impetuous habit of destroying letters from people with whom he had severed relationships on an unfriendly note. Finally, the irregular and careless storing and handling of Crane’s papers after his death has had its own inevitable results. The responsibility to be exercised in the task of organizing the letters of a tempestuous and controversial man like Hart Crane, is as much a matter of human judgment as it is a familiarity with the canons of scholarship. Crane conformed less, overtly at least, to the dominant mores of his age than probably any of his contemporaries. The leitmotif was restless deviation--whether aesthetic, social, religious, or sexual. The record of his days vibrates with an explosive terror and repose--elated, wretched, violent, Rabelaisian--which find dynamic outlet in his letters. Insofar as Crane’s letters will serve to develop a self-portrait and contribute toward an understanding of three decades of our American past, no harm can be accomplished by a forthright presentation. The editor, therefore, has not suppressed any portions of Crane’s letters which might disturb the genteel or excite the prurient. Those who have studied Crane’s poetry with perception know how richly studded it is with the imagery, symbolism, and themes of love. As this preface was being put into final form, the editor received a copy of Dr. Paul Friedman’s “The Bridge: A Study in Symbolism” (_The Psychoanalytic Quarterly_, Jan. 1952). After discussing such writers as Wilder and Kafka, Dr. Friedman, one of the few psychoanalysts who displays a genuine concern for literary values, goes on to say: “It implies no irreverence toward Crane’s poetic sensibility to introduce these [psychological] concepts. The sexual...