A cosmopolitan, bejeweled and philosophical chronicle of friendship, love, sex and work.

This book, which takes us from age 6 (a letter to Santa Claus) all the way to his final days in Tucson, Ariz., where he died from AIDS-related complications in 1995, immerses us in that world and enriches our understanding of the poetry that came out of it.

What emerges most strongly from the letters collected in A Whole World is their lightness of touch, lightness of spirit, and the quality of affection on display.

One of the immediate rewards of reading his letters is to find, embedded in otherwise newsy or purely conversational letters, passages of great painterly beauty.

It’s a fundamentally surprising kind of volume, something that already feels like an anachronism encountered in some museum’s dusty basement.

The letters gathered in A Whole World display...openness. No subject—certainly no erotic subject—is scanted. The notes are vivid and chatty, and sometimes include recipes or cameos by the likes of William Burroughs.

Much of this collection, edited by Hammer, is ephemeral—chatter and gossip, though with an extensive cast of characters—but the regularity with which Merrill wrote demonstrates his passion for the art of writing.