Location: Home » Wine Books » General AAS » William Maxwell: Early Novels and Stories

The Oenophile Network Blog & Forum Links

Wine Blog
Wine Forum

William Maxwell: Early Novels and Stories

enlarge

Author: William Maxwell
Creator: Christopher Carduff
Publisher: Library of America
Category: Book

List Price: ~~$35.00~~
Buy New: $19.55
You Save: $15.45 (44%)

New (35) Used (16) from $19.51

Avg. Customer Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars

2 reviews
Sales Rank: 282616

Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 920
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.3

ISBN: 159853016X
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9781598530162
ASIN: 159853016X

Publication Date: January 10, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Brand new never opened. in stock and ships today!

Similar Items:

•	William Maxwell: Later Novels and Stories: The Ch�teau / So Long, See You Tomorrow (Library of America #184)
•	Elizabeth Bishop: Poems, Prose and Letters (Library of America)
•	A.J. Liebling: World War II Writings (Library of America)
•	Philip K. Dick: Five Novels of the 1960s & 70s
•	Edmund Wilson: Literary Essays and Reviews of the 1920s & 30s: The Shores of Light / Axel's Castle / Uncollected Reviews (Library of America #176)

Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
Christopher Carduff, editor

In 1934, at age 26, William Maxwell left small-town Illinois for New York City, convinced that life and literature were elsewhere. "I had no idea then," he later wrote, "that three-quarters of the material I would need for the rest of my writing life was already at my disposal. My father and mother. My brothers. The look of things. The Natural History of home . . . All there, waiting for me to learn my trade and recognize instinctively what would make a story." With his second book, They Came Like Swallows (1937), 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 ction. Set against the background of the Spanish �u 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 ofng-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 ction collects his lighthearted rst 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 ction as he practiced it.

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars

One of Our Great Writers, Collected October 12, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

The first book of Maxwell's I read, in my late teens, was "So Long, See You Tomorrow" [in the second volume of this series,, "Later Novels"]. It was so great, so moving, that I couldn't imagine at that time ever reading anything else by this author. Fortunately I went exploring eventually. "The Folded Leaf" and "Time Will Darken It" [in this volume] should be on any reader's shelf or in their mind. I recommend this volume of Maxwell's early novels and stories as well as the second volume of his later works. Money well spent on an American writer whose work will genuinely enrich your life.

5 out of 5 stars

A valued and very strongly recommended addition February 7, 2008
12 out of 15 found this review helpful

The late William Maxwell (1908-2000) served for forty years as an editor at 'The New Yorker' magazine. An Illinois-boarn realist whose literary works provided his readers with 'windows' into small-town midwestern family life of the 1910 and 1920s, Maxwell's own mastery of American prose style was (and remains) unsurpassed by any of his contemporary including Eudora Welty, J. D. Slainger, John Updike, and Alice Munro (all of whom he was a first reader of their fiction in his professional capacity with 'The New Yorker'). Now his four early novels (Bright Centory of Heaven; They Came Like Swallows; The Folded Leaf; and Time Will Darken It) have been collected under one cover, along with nine of his early short stories, and his essay 'The Writer as Illusionist' which he wrote in 1955. "William Maxwell: Early Novels And Stories" is a valued and very strongly recommended addition to community, college, and university American Literature reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

Powered by Associate-O-Matic

Customer Service

Contact Customer Service
Ordering
Tracking Your Package
Shipping Information
Domestic Shipping Rates
International Shipping Rates
Returns
Gifts & Gift Certificates
Privacy & Security

Untitled Document Disclaimer: This is an Amazon storefront - the products referenced on this site are manufactured and sold by parties other than the Oenophile Network. The Oenophile Network makes no representations regarding either the products or any information vendors offer about their products. Any questions, complaints, or claims regarding the products must be directed to the appropriate manufacturer or vendor, or to Amazon.com.