§03§ §12§ §16§William Carlos Williams is widely acknowledged to be among the most important American poets of the twentieth century. This collection includes sixteen new essays from many of the world's leading authorities on Williams, and is published to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of his death in 1963. The volume contains fresh assessments of the nature and extent of Williams's profound and enduring impact on contemporary American poetic traditions, while providing a platform for appraising the neglected achievement of Williams as a writer of fiction and short stories. In doing so these and other essays highlight the nature and importance of Williams's relationship to working class life in twentieth-century America. Additionally, the volume groups together studies focusing on the enduring legacy of Williams's long poem, Paterson, and essays which revise Williams's perceived neglect of African-American and Native-American culture and history. §02§The Editor: Ian Copestake is a research fellow in American literature at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität, Frankfurt. His Ph.D. from the University of Leeds focused on Williams's relationship to Unitarianism and Emerson. His work on Williams, as well as studies in contemporary fiction and poetry, have appeared in a variety of publications and scholarly journals including the William Carlos Williams Review, The Literary Review, and Orbis. §02§The Editor: Ian Copestake is a research fellow in American literature at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität, Frankfurt. His Ph.D. from the University of Leeds focused on Williams's relationship to Unitarianism and Emerson. His work on Williams, as well as studies in contemporary fiction and poetry, have appeared in a variety of publications and scholarly journals including the William Carlos Williams Review, The Literary Review, and Orbis.
