The World Within the Word, Gass's second published volume of criticism, is a landmark collection discussing Valéry, Henry Miller, Sartre, Freud, Faulkner, suicide, "art and order," and the transformation of language into poetry and fiction. Revelatory and gorgeous, by turns humorous and devastating, it stands among Gass's best and most provocative books. First published by Knopf in 1978.