I especially remember two lighter episodes from my long friendship with Hilton. The first was a two-martini chat at 11:30 a.m. in the second-floor bar at Sardi’s, after which Hilton sauntered buoyantly back to the Times while I went on to a lunch at the Plaza with a prospective author, during which I was barely conscious. In the second episode, Hilton was involved in absentia. He had already left the Times when I went to see Chip McGrath, who was then editor of the Times Book Review. I walked into his office to see hanging on the wall near the door a framed photo of Hilton with a Hitler mustache drawn on. Hilton was tickled to hear he was then the Times’ Antichrist.

I had the privilege of publishing two of Hilton’s books, The Twilight of the Intellectuals and The Triumph of Modernism. I say “privilege” because I regarded him as the only critic who educated me about art and art history in reading him. He was crystal clear in his interpretations and fierce in his judgments. And despite his outrage in print and his continuing intellectual battles, I found him almost always jolly and a pleasure to be around.

To have established The New Criterionin the midst of a cultural decline was a major accomplishment. Not only that, but he imbued it with remarkably high standards of criticism which continue to this day. It is one of Hilton’s great legacies and a good