APPENDIX TWO Suggestions for Further Readings

The present book is primarily concerned with Van Gogh’s achievements as a writer and is addressed mainly to readers of the correspondence translated into English. The following suggestions for further reading take these constraints into account. Still, the simple fact remains that very little critical attention has been paid to the (widely acknowledged) literary distinction of Van Gogh’s letters, and readers who are interested in this topic and who have found the present book helpful might feel encouraged to consult its two predecessors: The Letters of Vincent van Gogh: A Critical Study (Edmonton: Athabasca University Press, 2014), and “My Own Portrait in Writing”: Self-Fashioning in the Letters of Vincent van Gogh (Edmonton: Athabasca University Press, 2015). In keeping with the main concerns addressed in these books, the following suggestions provide pointers towards a further engagement with Van Gogh’s remarkable genius and shed additional light on the astonishing symbiosis of writing and painting that his work as a whole achieves.

Editions

Vincent van Gogh: The Letters, ed. Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten, and Nienke Bakker, 6 vols. (London: Thames and Hudson, 2009). A treasure; the non pareil; magnificent and complete. Fifteen years in the making, this edition heralds a new era in the study of Van Gogh’s letters.

Ever Yours: The Essential Letters of Vincent van Gogh, ed. Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten, and Nienke Bakker (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014). The best selection available, by the same editors as the 2009 complete edition.

The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh. Introduction by V. W. Van Gogh; preface and memoir by Jo van Gogh-Bonger, 3 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., first published 1958, 3rd edition, 2000). This is the English translation of the groundbreaking four-volume Verzamelde brieven (Collected Letters), which appeared in 1952–54. It is the version most widely known to readers of the letters in English. Though superseded by the 2009 edition, it retains a special appeal.

Biography

Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, Van Gogh: The Life (New York: Random House, 2011). Exhaustive, brilliantly researched and documented, but an unrelentingly negative depiction of its subject.

Julian Bell, Van Gogh: A Power Seething (Boston and New York: New Harvest, 2014). Brief, captivating, and perceptive. Like his subject, Bell is a gifted painter who is also a gifted writer.

Albert J. Lubin, Stranger on the Earth: A Psychological Biography of Vincent van Gogh (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972). An often thought-provoking psychoanalytical assessment. Sometimes it’s a stretch, but it is frequently insightful.

Irving Stone, Lust for Life (London: Longmans Green, 1934). Billed as “the classic biographical novel of Vincent van Gogh”—and so it is. Stone gives us Van Gogh the romantic, tormented outsider. The book was made into a film, with the same title. Both remain interesting, if outdated, and both have contributed much to popular perceptions of Van Gogh.

Other

Wouter van der Veen, Van Gogh: A Literary Mind—Literature in the Correspondence of Vincent van Gogh, Van Gogh Studies 2 (Zwolle: Waanders Publishers; Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum, 2009). An important book on Van Gogh’s extensive reading.

Leo Jansen, Van Gogh and His Letters (Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum, 2007). A brief, expert, and luminous introduction to the main aspects of the letters.

Van Gogh: A Retrospective, ed. Susan Alison Stein (New York: Park Lane, 1986). A collection of memoirs, reviews, newspaper articles, and the like documenting the early shaping of Van Gogh’s reputation.

Vincent’s Choice: Van Gogh’s Musée Imaginaire, ed. Chris Stolwijk, Sjraar van Heugten, Leo Jansen, and Andreas Bluhm. Exhibition catalogue (Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum; London: Thames and Hudson, 2003). A rich collection of essays pertaining especially to the shaping of Van Gogh’s imagination. Well worth the effort of tracking a copy down.

Brief Happiness: The Correspondence of Theo van Gogh and Jo van Gogh-Bonger, ed. Leo Jansen and Jan Robert; introduction and commentary by Han van Crimpen (Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum; Zwolle: Waanders Publishers, 1999). Theo’s courtship of Jo, with many fascinating sidelights on Vincent—not least an appreciation of the “great mind” (194) at work in his letters.