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The Thirties: From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period
The Forties: From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period
The Twenties: From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period
Ebook series5 titles

Edmund Wilson's Notebooks and Diaries Series

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About this series

The last of Edmund Wilson's posthumously published journals turned out to be one of his major books, The Sixties: the Last Journal, 1960–1972--a personal history that is also brilliant social comedy and an anatomy of the times.

Wilson catches the flavor of an international elite -- Stravinsky, Auden, Andre Malraux, and Isaiah Berlin -- as well as the New York literati and the Kennedy White House, but he never strays too far from the common life, whether noting the routines of his normal neighbors or the struggle of his own aging.

"Candor and intelligence come through on every page--in this always absorbing journal by perhaps the last great man of American letters." - Kirkus Reviews

LanguageEnglish
Release dateNov 12, 2019
The Thirties: From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period
The Forties: From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period
The Twenties: From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period

Titles in the series (5)

  • The Twenties: From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period

    1

    The Twenties: From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period
    The Twenties: From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period

    In these pages, The Twenties: From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period, the preeminent literary critic Edmund Wilson gives us perhaps the largest authentic document of the time, the dazzling observations of one of the principal actors in the American twenties. Here is the raw side of the U.S.A., the mad side of Hollywood, the literary infighting in New York, the gossip and anecdotes of an astonishing cast of characters, the jokes, the profundities, the inanities. Here is the slim young man in Greenwich Village sallying forth to parties in matching ties and socks. Here is F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edna St. Vincent Millay, John Peale Bishop, H.L. Mencken, Dorothy Parker, e.e. cummings, John Dos Passos and Eugene O'Neill.

  • The Thirties: From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period

    2

    The Thirties: From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period
    The Thirties: From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period

    From one of America's greatest literary critics comes Edmund Wilson's insightful and candid record of the 1930's, The Thirties: From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period. Here, continuing from Wilson's previous journal, The Twenties, the narrator moves from the youthful concerns of the Jazz Age to his more substantial middle years, exploring the decade's plunge from affluence and exploring the tenets of Communism. His personal life is also amply represented, from his marriage to Margaret Canby and her subsequent tragic death to various erotic episodes with unidentified women.

  • The Forties: From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period

    3

    The Forties: From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period
    The Forties: From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period

    From one of the greatest literary critics of the twentieth century, this installment of Edmund Wilson’s private notebooks covers the years of the 1940s, providing a rich lens into the writer’s life and the world at large. Wilson turned forty-five in 1940, and this volume The Forties: From Notebooks & Diaries of the Period shows the extent to which he was reappraising his life in the decade to follow - saying goodbye to the drifting of the 1920s and the Marxism of the 1930s. Published posthumously and edited by Leon Edel, The Forties includes observations on his increasingly complicated family matters and covers appreciatively writers like Andre Malraux, W. H. Auden, and Max Beerbohm, as well as entries from his research and travels. "We can see the beginnings of the masterly work of Wilson's later years, the studies of the American literary and mythic past on which his reputation will surely rest." Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post on The Forties

  • The Fifties: From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period

    4

    The Fifties: From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period
    The Fifties: From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period

    Edmund Wilson's The Fifties, edited by Leon Edel, is the highly acclaimed fourth volume in the series that began with The Twenties. It is complimented with photographs and journal excerpts of some of the most interesting characters of the decade, including Edna St. Vincent Millay, W.H. Auden, and Vladimir Nabokov. "A giant's workroom we can wander through, marveling ..." - Richard Locke, The Wall Street Journal on The Fifties: From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period

  • The Sixties: The Last Journal, 1960–1972

    5

    The Sixties: The Last Journal, 1960–1972
    The Sixties: The Last Journal, 1960–1972

    The last of Edmund Wilson's posthumously published journals turned out to be one of his major books, The Sixties: the Last Journal, 1960–1972--a personal history that is also brilliant social comedy and an anatomy of the times. Wilson catches the flavor of an international elite -- Stravinsky, Auden, Andre Malraux, and Isaiah Berlin -- as well as the New York literati and the Kennedy White House, but he never strays too far from the common life, whether noting the routines of his normal neighbors or the struggle of his own aging. "Candor and intelligence come through on every page--in this always absorbing journal by perhaps the last great man of American letters." - Kirkus Reviews

Author

Edmund Wilson

Edmund Wilson (1895-1972) was a novelist, memoirist, playwright, journalist, poet, and editor but it is as a literary critic that he is most highly regarded. His more than twenty books include Axel’s Castle, Patriotic Gore, To the Finland Station, and Memoirs of Hecate County.

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