NYT Observes the Death of Robert A. Wilson, Phoenix Book Shop Proprietor

The New York Times reports that Robert A. Wilson, proprietor of the Phoenix Book Shop—a haunt popular with New York City's poets—has died. "Allen Ginsberg was a regular. Diane di Prima and Denise Levertov often stopped by. He relished the day he introduced Edward Albee to William S. Burroughs and then to Gregory Corso. Years later, when the punk-rock star Patti Smith became interested in Beat Generation authors, she made the Phoenix, as it was known, a destination." We'll pick up with NYT's remembrance there:

Mr. Wilson was friendly with W. H. Auden and acquired Auden’s library, or at least the books Auden did not take along when he left New York. Mr. Wilson later reported that he had spent “four solid days of bundling and packing and moving,” using a station wagon he borrowed from a cousin.

He was also known for his finds. He acquired the original working manuscript of Dylan Thomas’s “Under Milk Wood.” And in the mid-1970s, he obtained the manuscript of William Faulkner’s first novel, “Soldiers’ Pay,” from a man with whom Mr. Wilson had a drink on Fire Island. The man, whom he identified only as Louie, had once roomed with Faulkner. When Faulkner married and moved out, he left the manuscript for Louie.

Mr. Wilson also published more than 40 books. Some were limited editions of works by the authors he knew, among them Gertrude Stein, Marianne Moore, W. S. Merwin, Auden and Ginsberg. Others were comprehensive bibliographies of Jack Kerouac, Corso, Levertov and Stein, among others.

Continue reading at NYT.