Paul Mariani's reputation as one of the major literary biographers writing today rests primarily on one book: William Carlos Williams: A New World Naked (1981). "This is a biography of days and weeks and months and years carefully recited," wrote Robert Coles in the New Republic (25 November 1981). The book presents a multi-dimensioned portrait of the long-lived New Jersey poet and physician, conveying the texture of his everyday life as well as his intellectual and cultural milieu. Mariani also critically appraises Williams's literary achievement, discussing particular poems in their biographical contexts. Generally regarded as "an exemplary biography of a major poet" (Library Journal, 1 October 1981), in 1982 the book won the New Jersey Writers Award and was nominated for an American Book Award. In the New York Times Book Review (22 November 1981) Gilbert Sorrentino summed up Mariani's purpose in writing Williams's biography and anticipated its importance in securing William's place in the forefront...