No. "Former" is paired with "latter" when only two things have previously been mentioned.
I have a cat and a dog. The former is brown and the latter is black.
I usually read The Daily News and The Post. I read the former on weekdays and the latter at weekends.
Your example uses "earlier" to refer to writings he made early in his career and "later" to refer to the writings he made at a later stage of his career.

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