James Laughlin, New Directions Press, and the Remaking of Ezra Pound

Although James Laughlin (1914-1997) came from one ofPittsburgh's leading steel-making families, his passions were literary rather than industrial—he wanted to be a poet. Laughlin was a freshman at Harvard when he traveled to Rapallo, Italy, in 1933 to meet Ezra Pound (1885-1972), and he returned the following year to enroll in the poet's "Ezuversity." Pound dismissed Laughlin's poetic talents, advising the wealthy young man to make himself over into a publisher. Laughlin did just that, founding …