https://amgreatness.com/2020/12/26/joseph-epstein-in-brief/
To think that a single op-ed could elicit such an effluence of opinion and such a diluvium of print is to recognize that Epstein, who will turn 84 in January, has lost none of his touch.
Joseph Epstein has made some news recently, mainly as a target of the cancel culture. The English Department at Northwestern University, where he holds emeritus status, erased him from its website and did all but lapidate him for his crimes against wokery.
This story is the least of reasons for one to become familiar with Joseph Epstein. He is among the best American essayists—a stylist who seems effortlessly witty, generous, and graceful in both small and large matters.
I came to know his writing when he served as the editor of The American Scholar, from 1975 to 1997. He turned that once stodgy magazine of the Phi Beta Kappa society into a delight for many, though he riled some readers with his caustic comments on academic feminism and for granting a platform to conservative scholars. Joyce Carol Oates published a letter in the New York Times in 1991 calling Epstein an “embarrassment” to the publication and urging his resignation. PBK kicked him out six years later, and replaced him with Anne Fadiman, who brought a bien-pensant sensibility that restored The American Scholar to dull respectability.
Epstein, however, continued to write essays and stories, and to publish one collection after another:
Charm: The Elusive Enchantment
Wind Spirits: Shorter Essays
Fabulous Small Jews (stories)
The Love Song of A. Jerome Minkoff and Other Stories
A Literary Education
The Ideal of Culture
Essays in Biography
Friendship: An Exposé
Narcissus Leaves the Pool
Snobbery: The American Version
Gallimaufry: A Collection of Essays, Reviews, Bits
I list these titles of but a fraction of his 24 books in no particular order.