Author | David Herbert Donald |
---|---|
Language | English |
Subject | Biography |
Published | 1987 |
Publisher | Little, Brown |
Publication place | United States |
ISBN | 9780316189521 |
OCLC | 925224109 |
Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe is a 1987 biography of Thomas Wolfe by David Herbert Donald. It won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize in Biography. [1]
Harold Bloom called the book the definitive biography of Wolfe. [2] Library Journal called the book the most successful of Wolfe's three major biographies to that date [3] (it had been preceded by books by Wolfe's agent Elizabeth Nowell [4] (1960) and by Andrew Turnbull (1967), [5] both titled Thomas Wolfe: A Biography; other biographies have been published since). Publishers Weekly wrote that Donald documented Wolfe's life and work "[m]ore fully than any previous biographer." [6] Leslie Field wrote that Donald writes of Wolfe in "incisive, graceful, and forceful style" and has many advantages that Wolfe's earlier biographers did not, including access to material, letters, and papers that had not been available before. [5]
Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe is not particularly kind to Wolfe's editors. Donald is hostile to Maxwell Perkins' editing, feeling that Wolfe and Perkins did not have compatible visions and that Perkins was more concerned with producing a best seller than a transcendent work of art. [5] Donald excoriates Edward Aswell even more, accusing him of butchery: "Greatly exceeding the professional responsibility of an editor, Aswell took impermissible liberties with Wolfe's manuscript, and his interference seriously eroded the integrity of Wolfe's text. Far from deserving commendation, Aswell's editorial interference was, both from the standpoint of literature and of ethics, unacceptable". (Harold Bloom demurred, writing that "Mr. Donald, an admirable biographer and skilled historian, ought to have avoided writing literary criticism of Wolfe" since Wolfe's prose is "less tiresomely obtrusive after being worked over by Aswell".) [2]
Thomas Clayton Wolfe was a major American novelist of the first half of the 20th century. His enduring reputation rests largely on his first novel, Look Homeward, Angel (1929), and on the short fiction that appeared during the last years of his life. He was one of the first masters of autobiographical fiction, and along with William Faulkner, he is considered one of the most important authors of the Southern Renaissance within the American literary canon. He is North Carolina's most famous writer.
Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Jr. was an American author and journalist widely known for his association with New Journalism, a style of news writing and journalism developed in the 1960s and 1970s that incorporated literary techniques. Much of Wolfe's work was satirical and centred on the counterculture of the 1960s and issues related to class, social status, and the lifestyles of the economic and intellectual elites of New York City.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1988.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1987.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1983.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1975.
William Maxwell Evarts "Max" Perkins was an American book editor, best remembered for discovering authors Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, and Thomas Wolfe.
David Herbert Donald was an American historian, best known for his 1995 biography of Abraham Lincoln. He twice won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography for earlier works; he published more than 30 books on United States political and literary figures and the history of the American South.
Bernard Augustine DeVoto was an American historian, conservationist, essayist, columnist, teacher, editor, and reviewer. He was the author of a series of Pulitzer-Prize-winning popular histories of the American West and for many years wrote The Easy Chair, an influential column in Harper's Magazine. DeVoto also wrote several well-regarded novels and during the 1950s served as a speech-writer for Adlai Stevenson. His friend and biographer, Wallace Stegner described DeVoto as "flawed, brilliant, provocative, outrageous, ... often wrong, often spectacularly right, always stimulating, sometimes infuriating, and never, never dull."
The Harvard Advocate, the art and literary magazine of Harvard College, is the oldest continuously published college art and literary magazine in the United States. The magazine was founded by Charles S. Gage and William G. Peckham in 1866 and, except for a hiatus during the last years of World War II, has published continuously since then. In 1916, The New York Times published a commemoration of the Advocate's fiftieth anniversary. Fifty years after that, Donald Hall wrote in The New York Times Book Review: "In the world of the college—where every generation is born, grows old and dies in four years—it is rare for an institution to survive a decade, much less a century. Yet the Harvard Advocate, the venerable undergraduate literary magazine, celebrated its centennial this month." Its current offices are a two-story wood-frame house at 21 South Street, near Harvard Square and the university campus.
Aline Bernstein was an American set designer and costume designer. She and Irene Lewisohn founded the Museum of Costume Art. Bernstein was the lover, patron, and muse of novelist Thomas Wolfe.
Jon Ellis Meacham is an American writer, reviewer, historian and presidential biographer who is serving as the Canon Historian of the Washington National Cathedral since November 7, 2021. A former executive editor and executive vice president at Random House, he is a contributing writer to The New York Times Book Review, a contributing editor to Time magazine, and a former editor-in-chief of Newsweek. He is the author of several books. He won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House. He holds the Carolyn T. and Robert M. Rogers Endowed Chair in American Presidency at Vanderbilt University.
Look Homeward, Angel: A Story of the Buried Life is a 1929 novel by Thomas Wolfe. It is Wolfe's first novel, and is considered a highly autobiographical American coming-of-age story. The character of Eugene Gant is generally believed to be a depiction of Wolfe himself. The novel briefly recounts Eugene's father's early life, but primarily covers the span of time from Eugene's birth in 1900 to his definitive departure from home at the age of 19. The setting is a fictionalization of his home town of Asheville, North Carolina, called Altamont in the novel.
Ketti Frings was an American writer, playwright, and screenwriter who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1958.
Look Homeward, Angel is a 1957 stage play by the playwright Ketti Frings. The play is based on Thomas Wolfe's 1929 largely autobiographical novel of the same title.
David Nasaw is an American author, biographer and historian who specializes in the cultural, social and business history of early 20th Century America. Nasaw is on the faculty of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he is the Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Professor of History.
Linnie Marsh Wolfe was an American librarian. She won the 1946 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for her 1945 biography of John Muir titled Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir.
The Web and the Rock is an American bildungsroman novel by Thomas Wolfe, published posthumously in 1939. Like its sequel, You Can't Go Home Again it was extracted by Edward Aswell from a larger manuscript after Wolfe's death.
Edward Campbell Aswell was a 20th-century American editor. He was Thomas Wolfe's last editor and edited Wolfe's three posthumous books. This required considerable editorial work as the manuscripts were not in publishable form at Wolfe's death, but how much credit for the resulting three books devolves to Wolfe, and how much to Aswell, remains a subject of dispute.