http://www.newstatesman.com/writers/deborah_bowman en http://www.newstatesman.com/200605150043 http://www.newstatesman.com/200605150043 Mon, 15 May 2006 12:00:00 GMT Deborah Bowman Selected Letters of William Empson Edited by John Haffenden Oxford University Press, 729pp, £40 ISBN 0199286841 He was thrown out of Cambridge, taught English in Tokyo and broadcast alongside George Orwell. But the critic William Empson also found time to write thousands of letters. As Deborah Bowman discovers, even his throwaway lines reveal his brilliance

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