Abstract

A couple of weeks ago, while I was in the throes of drafting a paper about the significant alterations in Wayne Booth's thinking implied by his developing the concept of coduction in The Company We Keep, I received a rather amazing letter. As soon as I read it, I realized that it contained a far more appropriate assessment of Booth's evolving thoughts about the relations among authors, texts, and readers than anything my lugubrious analysis would yield. This letter, as you'll see, is far from unqualified praise of Booth, but I believe it gets at aspects of his work that a more reverential approach would just plain miss.