In the opening pages of Charles Molesworth’s 1990 biography of Marianne Moore, the reader encounters two exceedingly curious sentences. “I have chosen,” declares Molesworth in the first of these, “to limit my interpretations of [Moore’s] character by relying more on literary than on psychological questions.” Study that statement for a moment—savor it, if you will—and ponder its meaning. What is Molesworth saying here? Apparently, that he not only thinks a biographer can somehow “interpret” his subject’s “character” while skirting “psychological questions,” but also that for some reason he has found this course of action to be advisable. Which, of course, raises the questions: Exactly how does one go about interpreting a person’s character while de-emphasizing “psychological questions”? And why? On to his next sentence: “Hence most of my evidence focuses on the external facts of Moore’s life.” What can this possibly mean, other than that Molesworth, for whatever perverse reason, has purposefully set out to produce a shallow account of his subject’s life? In any event, Molesworth more than fulfilled his goal: Reviewing his book for the Washington Post, I found it to be a staggeringly superficial effort by a writer whose unreflectiveness seemed stubborn and boundless; at the end of my review, I expressed the hope “that a more poised and penetrating study of [Moore’s] singular writings and enigmatic life will materialize before too long.”