Isaac Babel, Introduction to Collected Stories

Born in Queens, New York, Lionel Trilling was one of the most influential literary critics of the twentieth century. After receiving his master’s degree at Columbia University in 1926, he returned in 1932 to earn his doctorate, later becoming the first Jewish professor in the English department. His first published works were studies of Matthew Arnold and E. M. Forster, but his name was made with his 1950 collection The Liberal Imagination, which sold more than one hundred thousand copies. Despite his success as a critic, Trilling had initially hoped to be a novelist, but his only finished novel was not nearly as well received as his critical work.