The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell, Volume 2: The Public Years 1914-1970

This second of two volumes of Russell's letters covers most of Russell's adult life, the period during which he wrote over thirty books. Alongside Russell'sAutobiography,these letters present the most accurate and fascinating account of his life yet published. They contain letters to some of the greatest figures of the twentieth century, including Ho Chi Minh, Lyndon Johnson, Tito, Jawaharlal Nehru and Jean-Paul Sartre, almost all of which are previously unpublished. The letters, only three of which have been published before, present a brilliant picture of a philosophical genius, an impassioned campaigner for peace and social reform, and a man torn between a longing for closeness to those he loved and an intense fear of possessiveness which he saw as his own "fundamental vice." The letters also reveal the astonishing range of Russell's correspondence. The anguish of his personal life comes through powerfully in his letters to Ottoline Morrell and Colette O'Neil. Other sides of Russell, fromhis thoughts on science to education, are revealed in his letters to Neils Bohr, Rebecca West and John Dewey. We learn of his troubled friendship with D.H. Lawrence and T.S. Eliot, and there are letters about his founding of Beacon Hill School and the Russian Revolution. At the age of seventy, Russell was dictating up to twelve letters a day. He was a tireless and engaging correspondent, and these letters, selected and fully annotated by Nicholas Griffin, give a vivid picture of his life and activities.