Jonathan Safran Foer, acclaimed young author of Everything is Illuminated , fell in love with the work of Joseph Cornell while still a student at Princeton University and embarked on an ambitious project: to interest some of America's best-known writers to create original fiction and poetry inspired by the boxed collages of this beloved artist. Beautifully designed and produced--with over 20 tipped-on color plates, some of which are reproduced here for the first time--this original literary anthology will please readers and art lovers alike. Cornell s artwork is generously and colorfully reproduced. The book s writing is suitably delicate, respectful, and distanced .enlightening and revealing -- Rain Taxi, Summer 2001 --Dobby Gibson Diverse and inspired, the writings riccochet off Cornell and each other in a dazzling celebration of the imagination at work. -- The Daily Californian, July 20, 2001 In both design and content, this is a gorgeous, captivating book. -- --Madison Smartt Bell Like the late artist s work, this is a project both bizarre and compelling. -- Book, July/August 2001 Cornell, as seen through the eyes of some of our best writers-shining, ever shining, in a great dazzle of particulars... -- --Paul Auster conceptual without being simplistically surreal The fiction and poetry intrigues in a manner worthy of the works that inspired them. -- Review of Contemporary Fiction, Summer 2001 --Peter Donahue prose and poetry filled with grand hotels, little girls, fetishes, birds and other constellations of Cornell s wonderfully lonely universe. -- Art & Auction, July/August 2001 --Jori Finkel 1992 - The young woman's brother asked a friend (who would, years later, become a friend of mine) if he would help him sift through a roomful of boxes in an Upstate storage facility. It was time to save what was worth saving and part with the rest. He couldn't do it alone. When they came upon the poster, both were surprised: the friend because of the rare artifact of his favorite artist's life, the brother because above the two pieces of handwriting (Cornell's signature and the love note), was a third-in shaky blue ink: This belonged to Beatrice. He didn't know if it had been written by his father, or mother, or by his sister herself. And because he was alone-his parents having passed away the previous winter, within a month of each other there was no way to find out. By the time I saw the poster-on an August, 1995 visit to my friend's studio-there was another text: this one, like the first two, of known origin. The brother had written: A gift of a gift of a gift. "He needed to get rid of it," my friend told me. "It was that kind of gift." My friend hid attached the poster to a large canvas, hoping to make good use of it in a painting he was working on for an upcoming show. In the brief conversation that ensued, I learned the history of the poster, and learned, for the first time, about Cornell, who was "not quite a Surrealist," and had "exhausted his medium, as all geniuses do." That afternoon, following something between a whim and a premonition, I went to the New York Public Library and found the catalogue for MoMAs 1980 Cornell retrospective. On the withdraw card was a roster of names: those belonging to the eleven people who had already taken the book out that year I remember Elena Salter, and I remember Donald Franks. I remember a Henry, a Theresa, a Jennifer and a James. Each name was written in different script, each with a different pen, held by a different hand. I signed my name into the registry--as if the catalogue were a hotel, as if I expected to meet the eleven others in some metaphysical lobby-and took it home. My life began to change. By the end of the summer, I was pursuing obscure references, tracking down essays about essays about essays. When the new school year began, I spent afternoons in the university art library, sifting through the precious few books that had Cornell images. I hunted for more images, more stories, and spent weekends in Manhattan's rare art book stores, flipping through the pages of limited edition gallery catalogues that I would never be able to afford. Of course I read Deborah Solomon's biography (dedicated to her husband, Kent Sepkowitz) when it came out in 1997, and even gave a copy of it to a girl I was then interested in. I love this, I wrote on the title page, and, You will love this. (What was the this? The biography? Cornell? The love of Cornell? Of gifts? Of inscriptions? The love of the beginning of love?) It wasn't until two years and hundreds of hours of research later-a quarter of a century after those first letters were sent outthat the seeds of the simple idea were ! planted: I must do something with my love-for Cornell, for my love of Cornell, for gifts, inscriptions and the beginning of love. I began to write letters. Dear Mr. Foer: Your letter, which covers a whole page, contain, only one line about what you want. " . . . a st