Published in 1931, Axel's Castle was Edmund Wilson's first book of literary criticism. This groundbreaking work delves into the evolution of the French Symbolist movement and its profound impact on six major twentieth-century writers: William Butler Yeats, Paul Valéry, T. S. Eliot, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, and Gertrude Stein.

Wilson, an original and extraordinary literary artist, masterfully turns each literary subject back into the personal drama it had been for the writer. Axel's Castle offers a fascinating journey through the landscape of French Symbolism and its far-reaching influence on the giants of modern literature at the turn of the century.