The Groves of Academe

The Groves of Academe

First edition
Author	Mary McCarthy
Language	English
Publisher	Harcourt, Brace
Publication date	1952
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print
Pages	302

The Groves of Academe is a 1952 academic novel by American writer Mary McCarthy. ^{[1] [2]}

The novel concerns the events that take place after Henry Mulcahy, a literary instructor at the fictitious Jocelyn College, learns that his teaching appointment will not be renewed. The novel is intended as a satire of academics based on the author's teaching experiences at Bard and Sarah Lawrence Colleges. The book is prefaced by a quote from Horace's Epistles,Atque inter silvas academi quaerere verum, which translates from the Latin as "And seek for truth in the groves of Academus." The book's first chapter, "An Unexpected Letter," originally appeared in The New Yorker . ^[3]

The work is written in the third person, omniscient narrative mode and begins from Henry Mulcahy's perspective, but later focuses on the perspectives of the other faculty members, particularly Domna Rejnev.

Characters

• Henry Mulcahy ^[1] is the literature instructor and Joyce expert around whom the story revolves. Though portrayed at first as a sympathetic character, he is later revealed to be manipulative, duplicitous, and self-serving.
• Maynard Hoar is the President of Jocelyn College, and the man responsible for Mulcahy's dismissal.
• Howard Furness is the chairman of Jocelyn's literature department.
• Domna Rejnev, a young woman from Russia, is the youngest member of the literature department and the first of the faculty to hear of Mulcahy's woes.

References

1. Morris, Alice (February 24, 1952). "When Suspicion Fell on the Impossible Mulcahy". The New York Times On The Web. Archived from the original on February 24, 2022. Retrieved November 14, 2023.
2. Williams, Jeffrey J. (Fall 2012). "The Rise of the Academic Novel". American Literary History. 24 (3): 561–89. Retrieved May 28, 2025.
3. Chapter One was first published February 3, 1951, in The New Yorker. See, also, the Acknowledgments page.