To the Finland Station

[Dave Monroe]

May 2003

Dear Dave Monroe,

NYRB Classics is proud to announce the publication of
its 100th title: Edmund Wilson's To the Finland
Station, an epic account of revolutionary politics,
people, and ideas, a picture of the modern age that
throngs with conspirators and philosophers,
politicians, utopians, and nihilists. NYRB's new
edition of this great, exciting book includes a new
introduction by Louis Menand, who won the Pulitzer
Prize for his own remarkable history of ideas, The
Metaphysical Club.

I am especially pleased that To the Finland Station
should figure as our 100th classic since the series
began with Wilson's selection of Anton Chekhov's
brooding late fiction, Peasants and Other Stories.
Wilson's extraordinary intellectual range, commitment
to literature new and old, and critical discernment
continue to set an example which we try to honor in
NYRB Classics. 

Karl Marx said—and with To the Finland Station on our
list, surely I can get away with quoting Marx—that to
make a revolution it is necessary "not to draw a large
dash between past and future, but to realize the ideas
of the past." From the start NYRB Classics has existed
to affirm the continuing presence of the past, its
potential to surprise and astonish, transforming
present convictions in ways that are rich and
strange—and even perhaps revolutionary. Thanks then to
all the people who have not only encouraged us with
their enthusiastic embrace of NYRB Classics but have
helped to inspire us, as well, by sending us so many
wonderful suggestions of their own.

Edwin Frank
Editor, NYRB Classics

http://www.nybooks.com/shop/product?usca_p=t&product_id=950

"Much later I got around to two other mighty
influences, Edmund Wislon's To the Finland Station and
Machiavelli's The Prince, which helped me to develop
the interesting question underlying the story--is
history personal or statistical?" (SL, "Intro," p. 18)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0211&msg=72934&sort=date

And check out the NYRB's "sleeper sale" as well ...

http://www.nybooks.com/nyrb/specials

I'd recommend Ernst Junger's The Glass Bees in
particular, esp. here, esp. now ...

http://www.nybooks.com/shop/product?product_id=9

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