The New York Public Library Literature Companion

Staff of The New York Public Library, Anne Skillion

• Publisher: Free Press
• Year: 2001
• ISBN:
  9781439137215
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism History & Theory
• Index: Literature

Pick up The New York Public Library Literature Companion to check the dates of Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past or to find out how James Joyce's Ulysses changed U.S. obscenity laws, and you may find yourself hours later absorbed in the imaginary worlds of Camelot and The Matrix or sidetracked by the fascinating history of The New Yorker. Designed to satisfy the curious browser as well as the serious researcher, this exciting new resource offers the most up-to-date information on literature available in English from around the world, from the invention of writing to the age of the computer.Interwoven throughout the more than 2, 500 succinct and insightful entries on Creators, Works of Literature, and Literary Facts and Resources are the fascinating facts and quirky biographical details that make literature come alive. Readers will discover, for instance, that Walt Whitman was fired from his government job after his personal copy of Leaves of Grass was discovered in his desk by the Secretary of the Interior, who was scandalized by it; that James Baldwin remembered listening to blues singer Bessie Smith ("playing her till I fell asleep") when he was writing his first book; and that a publisher turned down the serialization rights to Gone with the Wind, saying, "Who needs the Civil War now -- who cares?" Looking for information about book burning or how many Nobel laureates have come from Japan? You'll find it here. Trying to remember the name of that movie based on a favorite book? Read the "Variations" section -- you'll be amazed at the pervasive presence of great literature in today's entertainment. From Aristophanes to Allende, from Bergson to Bloom, the biographical entries will inform readers about the men and women who have shaped -- and are shaping -- the literary world. Look into "Works of Literature" to discover the significance of Beowulf, The Fountainhead, Doctor Zhivago, and nearly 1, 000 other titles. Check the "Dictionary of Literature" to find out what the critics and theorists are talking about. And if you wish to delve even deeper, "Websites for Literature" and "Literary Factbooks and Handbooks" are just two of the bibliographies that will point readers in the right direction.Unique in scope and design and easy to use, The New York Public Library Literature Companion will be at home on every reader's shelf. Whether you are immersed in Stephen King or King Lear, this book has the insights, facts, and fascinating stories that will enrich your reading forever.With four major research centers and 85 branch libraries, The New York Public Library is internationally recognized as one of the greatest institutions of its kind. Founded in 1895, the library now holds more than 50 million items, including several world-renowned collections of literary manuscripts and rare books. Among the books published from the library in recent years are The New York Public Library Desk Reference (1998); The Hand of the Poet (1997); Letters of Transit: Reflections on Exile, Identity, Language, and Loss (1999); A Secret Location on the Lower East Side: Adventures in Writing, 1960-1980 (1998); and Utopia: The Search for the Ideal Society in the Western World (2000).

Abbey, Edward (January 29, 1927-March 14, 1989). American essayist and novelist. Born and raised on a Pennsylvania farm, Abbey studied at the University of New Mexico before joining the National Park Service full time. His best-known work, Desert Solitaire (1968), a nonfiction account of his experiences as a ranger in Utah, is a meditation on the beauty of the Southwestern desert and the human practices that threaten it. This book and The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975), a novel about a band of radical environmentalists, quickly became revered guides for the environmental movement. Other novels include The Brave Cowboy (1958), Fire on the Mountain (1962), The Fool’s Progress (1988), and Hayduke Lives! (1990), a sequel to The Monkey Wrench Gang.

Abbott, George (June 25, 1887-January 31, 1995). American playwright and screenwriter. Over the course of an exceptionally long career on Broadway (he worked well into his 90s and lived to be 107), Abbott coauthored and staged many popular farces and musical comedies. Born in Forestville, New York, Abbott studied at the University of Rochester and began his theater career as an actor. His productions—often collaborations—include such hits as Broadway (1926, cowritten with Philip Dunning), Three Men on a Horse (1935, cowritten with John Cecil Holm), and the musicals The Pajama Game (1954, cowritten with Richard Bissell), Damn Yankees (1955, cowritten with Douglas Wallop), and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Fiorello! (1959, cowritten with Jerome Weidman). Revivals of Abbott’s musicals On Your Toes (1936, cowritten with Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart) and Damn Yankees in recent decades reveal the popular appeal and staying power of this artist’s comic vision. In the 1920s and 1930s he wrote a number of screenplays, including the Academy Award-nominated All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), cowritten with Maxwell Anderson and Del Andrews. Mister Abbott (1963) is his autobiography.

Abe, Kōobō, pen name of Abe Kimifusa (March 7, 1924-January 22, 1993). Japanese novelist and playwright. One of the few Japanese writers to achieve international popularity, Abe created works detached from place and distinguished by a surrealist and absurdist sensibility. Their recurrent themes of isolation and alienation in modern urban life give them universal relevance. Abe grew up in Japanese-occupied Manchuria, and trained as a doctor in Tokyo, although he never practiced. In the late 1940s, he established a reputation as a writer of experimental allegories. His best-known work, THE WOMAN IN THE DUNES (Suna no Onna, 1962), is often cited as one of the finest Japanese novels of the post-World War II period. Other notable works include the novels The Face of Another (Tanin no Kao, 1964), The Ruined Map (Moetsukita Chizu, 1967), THE BOX MAN (Hakootoko, 1973), The Secret Rendezvous (Mikkai, 1977), The Ark Sakura (Hakobune Sakura Maru, 1984), and The Kangaroo Notebook (Kangarū Notō, 1991). Many of Abe’s works, including The Woman in the Dunes, have been made into films. A collection of his stories in English translation, Beyond the Curve, appeared in 1991.

Achebe, Chinua, in full Albert Chinualumogu Achebe (November 16, 1930- ). Nigerian novelist, short-story writer, essayist, poet, and editor. One of Africa’s best-known English-language writers, Achebe explores the impact of colonialism on traditional African life; his works reflect his firm belief that the writer should serve as both critic and conscience of his community. Educated at the University of Ibadan, Achebe worked at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation, cofounded a publishing company, and has held professorships at the University of Nigeria and at several American universities. As an editor and publisher, he has played an important role in bringing contemporary African literature to the West. Achebe came to international prominence after the publication of his enormously popular first novel, THINGS FALL APART (1958). His other novels include No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964), A Man of the People (1966), and Anthills of the Savannah (1987). He has also published collections of essays, stories, poems, and several children’s books based on Igbo folktales.

Aciman, André (January 2, 1951- ). American memoirist, essayist, and critic. Born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt, Aciman also lived in Italy and France before settling in the United States in 1968. He took a doctorate from Harvard, and has taught French and comparative literature at several colleges and universities, including Harvard, Princeton, New York University, and Bard. His much-acclaimed memoir, Out of Egypt (1995), tells the story of his cultured, urbane Jewish family’s 60-year sojourn in Egypt, from their arrival in Alexandria in 1905 to their final expulsion in 1965, just before he turned 15. Aciman’s lyrical, witty reflections on place, time, and memory have appeared in many publications, including The New York Times and THE NEW YORKER, and were collected in False Papers: Essays on Exile and Memory (2000), a book that led one critic to call him “our contemporary Proust.” He also contributed to and edited the collection of essays Letters of Transit: Reflections on Exile, Identity, and Loss (1999). Aciman’s literary criticism has appeared in PARTISAN REVIEW, THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, and THE NEW REPUBLIC, among other journals.

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“Writing has become my way of finding a space and of building a home for myself, my way of taking a shapeless, marshy world and firming it up with paper, the way the Venetians firm up eroded land by driving wooden piles into it.”

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André Aciman, “A Literary Pilgrim Progresses to the Past,” The New York Times (August 28, 2000)

Ackroyd, Peter (October 5, 1949- ). English novelist, biographer, and critic. Blurring the boundaries between past and present, fact and fiction, Ackroyd’s innovative novels are marked by his idiosyncratic conception of history and the nature of time. Ackroyd was born in London and educated at Cambridge and Yale, returning in 1973 to London, where he began a career in literary journalism. Among his novels are The Great Fire of London (1982), The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde (1983), the popular and award-winning Hawksmoor (1985), Chatterton (1987), English Music (1992), and The Trial of Elizabeth Cree: A Novel of the Limehouse Murders (1994). Ackroyd’s distinguished biographies include Ezra Pound and His World (1980), T. S. Eliot: A Life (1984), Dickens (1990), Blake (1995), and The Life of Thomas More (1998). London: The Biography appeared to critical acclaim in 2000.

Adams, Henry (February 16, 1838-March 27, 1918). American biographer, historian, and editor. The great-grandson of John Adams and the grandson of John Quincy Adams, both U.S. presidents, Adams chose the life of a reform-minded scholar instead of that of a statesman. His autobiography, THE EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS (1907), is one of the great works of American letters. Adams was born in Boston and educated at Harvard. During the Civil War, he worked in London as a secretary to his father, who was an ambassador to Britain. Back in the United States he worked for political reform as a journalist and, from 1870 to 1876, as editor of THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. At the same time, he accepted a professorship in medieval history at Harvard. A remarkably productive scholar, Adams published two biographies and two novels—Democracy, an American Novel (1880), published anonymously, and Esther (1884), published pseudonymously—before turning to his monumental nine-volume History of the United States of America During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison (1889-91). Adams’s exploration of the medieval world-view, MONT-SAINT-MICHEL AND CHARTRES (1904), also stands among his finest achievements.

Æ, pen name of George William Russell (April 10, 1867-July 17, 1935). Irish poet. An ardent nationalist, Russell led the early 20th-century Irish Literary Renaissance along with poet W. B. YEATS and playwright John Millington SYNGE, contributing to a revitalization of Irish literature and culture. Russell’s mystical poetry, incorporating visions and magical themes, was first published in Homeward: Songs by the Way in 1894. He followed with The Earth Breath (1897), The Divine Vision (1904), Gods of War (1915), Midsummer Eve (1928), and the Celtic-themed The House of the Titans (1934). Russell edited the magazine The Irish Homestead from 1904 to 1923 and the more political journal, The Irish Statesman, from 1923 to 1930. Russell also wrote prolifically on political, economic, and social issues, including agricultural reform, cooperative societies, and the Irish question, as well as on mysticism. The Living Torch (1937) collects “A.E.’s table-talk,” reprinted primarily from his columns in The Irish Statesman; an autobiography, The Candle of Vision, narrates the poet’s efforts “to relate his own vision to the vision of the seers and writers of the sacred books.” Russell received his unusual pen name by accident: in 1888, he wrote a letter to the editor of Lucifer signed “Aeon” (Latin, meaning age or lifetime; from the Greek aion), and the printer could decipher only the first two letters—thus “Æ” was born.

Aeschylus, in Greek Aischylos (525 B.C.-456 B.C.). Greek playwright. The first distinguished playwright of ancient Athens, Aeschylus markedly changed the dramatic form of tragedy by increasing the number of actors to two and diminishing the role of the chorus, thereby making possible true dialogue and action. Born to an aristocratic family in Eleusis, northwest of Athens, Aeschylus was wounded at the battle of Marathon (490 B.C.) and probably fought the Persians again at Salamis in 480 B.C. He was a major competitor in the Dionysia, Athens’s premier dramatic contest, which he first won in 484 B.C. after more than a decade of competing. His plays were noted for their august and lyrical language, moral and religious themes, and spectacular costumes and effects. He lost the Dionysia to Sophocles in 468 B.C., but had a final grand victory in 458 B.C. with his masterpiece, the ORESTEIA, a trilogy composed of Agamemnōn, The Libation Bearers (Choēphoroi), and The Furies (Eumenides). Only seven of his plays out of some 80 or 90 are extant; the others are The Suppliants (Hiketides, c. 423 B.C.), THE PERSIANS (Persai, 472 B.C.), SEVEN AGAINST THEBES (Hepta epi Thēbas, 467 B.C.), and PROMETHEUS BOUND (Prometheus Desmōtēs, date unknown). According to a popular story, Aeschylus died in Sicily when an eagle dropped a tortoise on his bald head, fulfilling a prophecy that he would be killed by a blow from heaven.

Aesop, in Greek Aisōpos. Greek fabulist. The Western tradition of fables, or moral tales with animal characters, began with the stories we now attribute to Aesop, some 200 of which—including “The Fox and the Grapes” and “The Tortoise and the Hare”—are collected in modern editions. There has been considerable speculation as to Aesop’s identity and whether in fact he existed at all, but many scholars today believe that Aesop was simply a name invented to provide an author for an accumulating body of fables. The earliest surviving collections were gathered by Greek poets and Latin translators, who added Oriental and other ancient stones to form AESOP’S FABLES. The collection made by Phaedrus in the 1st century A.D. greatly influenced Jean de LA FONTAINE and other later fable writers.

Agee, James (November 27, 1909-May 16, 1955). American novelist, film critic, and screenwriter. Agee is remembered for his influential film criticism, his sensitive and lyrical autobiographical fiction, and his insights into the plight of America’s poor. Agee grew up in Tennessee’s Cumberland Mountains region and was educated at Harvard. His first book, Permit Me Voyage, a collection of poetry, was published in the Yale Series of Younger Poets in 1934. Two years later, he and photographer Walker Evans lived among sharecroppers in Alabama for a Fortune magazine piece; out of this experience came not an article, but the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941). In 1957, his posthumously published novel, A DEATH IN THE FAMILY (1957), won the Pulitzer Prize. After 1948, Agee concentrated on film reviewing and screenwriting, producing scripts for The African Queen (1951), The Night of the Hunter (1955), and other films. His film criticism and several screenplays are collected in the two-volume Agee on Film (1958, 1960).

Agnon, S. Y., pen name of Shmuel Yosef Halevi Czaczkes (July 17, 1888-February 17, 1970). Israeli novelist and short-story writer. Celebrated for reintroducing traditional Hebrew literary styles and considered by many to be modern Hebrew fiction’s greatest virtuoso, Agnon became the first Hebrew-language writer to win the Nobel Prize (shared with Nelly Sachs, in 1966). Born in Galicia, where he received a traditional Jewish education, Agnon initially wrote in both Yiddish and Hebrew, but when he immigrated to Palestine in 1907, he adopted the surname Agnon and began to write exclusively in Hebrew. Among his best-known works are The Bridal Canopy (Hakhnasat Kallah, 1931), a story featuring a Hasidic wanderer in the Old World ghettos of Russia and Eastern Europe; Days of Awe (Yamim Noraim, 1937), an anthology of folktales inspired by the High Holy Days; A Guest for the Night (Ore’ah Natah Lalun, 1939), about the dissolution of European Jewish life after World War I; and Only Yesterday (Tmol Shilshom, 1945), an epic about Israel’s early immigrant pioneers.

Aiken, Conrad (August 5, 1889-August 17, 1973). American poet, short-story writer, novelist, and critic. Aiken was born in Savannah, Georgia, and suffered a childhood trauma that had an undeniable impact on his life and work: the loss of his parents by a murder-suicide perpetrated by his father, the 11-year-old discovering their bodies. A later interest in psychoanalytic theory may be traced in part to this event. Aiken attended Harvard, along with his friend and fellow poet T. S. ELIOT, and began publishing soon after graduating in 1911. His Selected Poems (1929) won a Pulitzer Prize. Some of his finest poems, includi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Editor’s Note
• Creators
• Works of Literature
• Literary Facts and Resources
• Index