Volume 26, Number 5 · April 5, 1979
The Words of Van Gogh
By John Russell
The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh
New York Graphic Society, vol. 3: 632 pp., $60.00 (the set)
Letters of Vincent van Gogh, 1886-1890: A Facsimile Edition (Amsterdam)
with an introduction by V.W. van Gogh
Scolar Press (London), in association with Moulenhoff International BV, two volumes, 1,100 pp., £180 (the set)
Flaubert is not Flaubert until we have read his letters to Louise Colet. Yet Flaubert died in 1880, whereas the full text of those letters did not appear until 1926. There will always be such cases. By comparison, the editing and publishing of the complete letters of Vincent van Gogh gave no trouble at all. Nearly all of them (some 650 out of 750) had been written to Vincent's brother Theo and were lovingly preserved. As a young bride, and later as a young widow, Madame Theo did all that could be asked of her in the way of archiving, and until his death a few months ago her son V.W. van Gogh (born 1890) proved himself an exemplary guardian of the flame. In 1953 the centenary of the birth of Vincent van Gogh was marked by the publication of all the letters then known to have survived, together with reproductions of all the drawings with which the correspondence was truffled.
Review, 3770 words
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