Early novels and stories / William Maxwell.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Maxwell, William, 1908-2000.

Contributor:

Carduff, Christopher.

Series:

Library of America ; 179.

Library of America ; 179

Standardized Title:

Works. Selections. 2008

Language:

English

Physical Description:

997 pages ; 21 cm.

Other Title:

Early novels & stories

Place of Publication:

New York : Library of America : Distributed to the trade in the United States by Penguin Putnam, [2008]

Summary:

With his second book, They Came Like Swallows (1937), William Maxwell found his signature subject matter--the fragility of human happiness--as well as his voice, a quiet, cadenced Midwestern voice that John Updike has called one of the wisest and kindest in American fiction. Set against the background of the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, this short novel presents the loving character of Elizabeth Morison, a devoted wife and mother, through the eyes of those whom she is fated to leave decades before her time. Edmund Wilson described The Folded Leaf (1945) as "a quite unconventional study of adolescent relationships--between two boys, with a girl in the offing--in Chicago and in a Middle Western college: very much lived and very much seen." He praised this "drama of the immature" for the compassion Maxwell brings to his male protagonists, whose intensely felt, unarticulated bond is beyond their inchoate ability to understand. Time Will Darken It (1948) is a drama of the mature: a good man's struggle to keep duty before desire and his family's needs before his own. It paints a portrait of Draperville, Illinois, in 1912, a proud and isolated community governed by gossip, where an ambitious young woman must not overreach the limits society has placed on her sex, and an older, married gentleman must not encourage her should she dare. Together with these major works, this Library of America edition of Maxwell's early fiction collects his lighthearted first novel, Bright Center of Heaven (1934), out of print for nearly 70 years, and nine masterly short stories. It concludes with "The Writer as Illusionist" (1955), Maxwell's fullest statement on the art of fiction as he practiced it. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation's literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America's best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

Contents:

Bright center of heaven

They came like swallows

Stories 1938-1945: Homecoming ; Actual thing ; Young Francis Whitehead ; Haller's second home ; Patterns of love

Folded leaf

Time will darken it

Stories 1952-1956: Trojan women ; Pilgrimage ; What every boy should know ; French scarecrow

Writer as illusionist

Appendix: Introduction to They came like swallows ; Preface to Time will darken it.

Notes:

"Christopher Carduff selected the contents and wrote the notes for this volume"--P. [5].

Includes bibliographic references (pages 974-997).

ISBN:

9781598530162

159853016X

OCLC:

184962540