The Collected Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick

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.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Published: 10/17/2017
ISBN: 9781681371542
Pages: 640
Weight: 1.30lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.00w x 1.30d

Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 07/24/2017
Kirkus Reviews 08/15/2017
Library Journal 10/15/2017 pg. 84