National Network for Equitable Library Service

Soon after his death, Vincent van Gogh’s reputation grew and developed through the extraordinary symbiosis evident between his paintings and letters. However it is a formidable task to read and analyze Van Gogh's nearly eight hundred letters due to the sheer bulk and complexity of the collection. Reading Vincent van Gogh is at once an interpretive guide to the letters and a distillation of Van Gogh’s key themes and ideas. This indispensable, synoptic, and interpretive view of the letters as a whole will be equally of interest to scholars and teachers making use of Van Gogh’s letters as it will be to those who have long been fascinated by the artist.

This is the third book by Patrick Grant on the letters of Vincent van Gogh. It builds on his previous work in The Letters of Vincent van Gogh (2014), a practical-critical study, and “My Own Portrait in Writing” (2015), a literary theoretical analysis that draws on the domain of modern literary studies. In the hands of Patrick Grant, the extraordinary literary achievements of Vincent van Gogh are explained and exemplified and claims that the well-known artist was also a great writer are confirmed.