Appreciation …

… In His Life and Writing, Robert D. Richardson Was Precise and Compassionate | Literary Hub. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

When I heard the news of Bob’s death last month at 86, I instantly recalled Emerson’s journal entry after Fuller’s tragic early death by drowning, “I have lost in her my audience.”  Many read this as the statement of a supreme egotist. But I have always heard it differently. Fuller was Emerson’s ideal reader, the one whose opinion mattered, the one he wrote for. Without her, he felt lost. I feel that way about Bob Richardson.