Books: Author in a Box

WILDERNESS (310 pp.)—Robert Penn Warren—Random House ($4.95).

It is long past time that modern business practice was applied to the important matter of the author's image ("image" in Madison Avenue's lexicon means what the public thinks about a person or corporation when it is not thinking very hard). Up to now, authors' images have been left, hit or miss, to book jacket eulogists and to the authors themselves.

When the image makers get around to studying the matter, they should consider the case of Robert Penn Warren. William Faulkner's image may have more dazzle, but for steady, omnidirectional glow, Warren's image holds a...