The first-ever collection of essays from across Elizabeth Hardwick's illustrious writing career, including works not seen in print for decades.
A New York Times Notable Book of 2017
Elizabeth Hardwick wrote during the golden age of the American literary essay. For Hardwick, the essay was an imaginative endeavor, a serious form, criticism worthy of the literature in question. In the essays collected here she covers civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s, describes places where she lived and locations she visited, and writes about the foundations of American literature—Melville, James, Wharton—and the changes in American fiction, though her reading is wide and international. She contemplates writers’ lives—women writers, rebels, Americans abroad—and the literary afterlife of biographies, letters, and diaries. Selected and with an introduction by Darryl Pinckney, the Collected Essays gathers more than fifty essays for a fifty-year retrospective of Hardwick’s work from 1953 to 2003. “For Hardwick,” writes Pinckney, “the poetry and novels of America hold the nation’s history.” Here is an exhilarating chronicle of that history.
- ISBN10 1681371545
- ISBN13 9781681371542
- Publish Date 17 October 2017
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint The New York Review of Books, Inc
- Edition Main
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 640
- Language English
- URL https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9781681371542