SOURCE: Earnshaw, Doris. “One Art: Letters.” World Literature Today 69, no. 1 (winter 1995): 151-52.

In the following essay, Earnshaw praises One Art: Letters.

In 1978 Elizabeth Bishop answered a request from a new neighbor at Lewis Wharf in Boston for information about local shops. Her now famous reply, vivid and exhaustive, thrills us with its energy. She has arranged for a housekeeper, lists pharmacies, fish markets, cafes with descriptions of their owners' foibles, sources for olive oil with a direction for ordering cannoli (filling separate), where to find soft macaroons, and the importance of avoiding tourists on weekends. One of six hundred letters that her publisher and editor Robert Giroux has chosen out of thousands, it reveals a spirit intensely alive to her surroundings. The locale shifts—Boston, New York, Key West, Brazil, Mexico, San Francisco, Europe—while the observing eye remains the same: generous, vigorous, humorous, and wise.

Some surprises...