Edmund Wilson

Wilson, Edmund (1895–1972), U.S. critic and writer who investigated the historical, sociological, and psychological background to literature. His prolific imaginative and critical output includes Axel's Castle (1931), a study of symbolism; To the Finland Station (1940), on the intellectual sources of the Russian Revolution; The Wound and the Bow (1941), on neurosis and literature; the explosive novel Memoirs of Hecate County (1949); and Patriotic Gore (1962), a study of Civil War literature.