Narratives of Empire Series
Written by Gore Vidal
Narrated by Grover Gardner
()
About this series
Washington, D.C., is the final installment in Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire,his acclaimed six-volume series of historical novels about the American past. It offers an illuminating portrait of our republic from the time of the New Deal to the McCar-thy era.
Widely regarded as Vidal's ultimate comment on how the American political system degrades those who participate in it, Washington, D.C. is a stunning tale of corruption and diseased ambitions. It traces the fortunes of James Burden Day, a powerful conservative senator who is eyeing the presidency; Clay Overbury, a pragmatic young congressional aide with political aspirations of his own; and Blaise Sanford, a ruthless newspaper tycoon who understands the importance of money and image in modern politics. With characteristic wit and insight, Vidal chronicles life in the nation's capital at a time when these men and others transformed America into "possibly the last empire on earth."
"Washington, D.C. may well be the finest of contemporary novels about the capital," said The New Yorker, and the Times Literary Supplement deemed it "a prodigiously skilled and clever performance."
Titles in the series (6)
- Lincoln: A Novel
2
Lincoln is the cornerstone of Gore Vidal’s fictional American chronicle, which includes Burr, 1876, Washington, D.C., Empire, and Hollywood. It opens early on a frozen winter morning in 1861, when President-elect Abraham Lincoln slips into Washington, flanked by two bodyguards. The future president is in disguise, for there is talk of a plot to murder him. During the next four years there will be numerous plots to murder this man who has sworn to unite a disintegrating nation. Isolated in a ramshackle White House in the center of a proslavery city, Lincoln presides over a fragmenting government as Lee’s armies beat at the gates. In this profoundly moving novel, a work of epic proportions and intense human sympathy, Lincoln is observed by his loved ones and his rivals. The cast of characters is almost Dickensian: politicians, generals, White House aides, newspapermen, Northern and Southern conspirators, amiably evil bankers, and a wife slowly going mad. Vidal’s portrait of the president is at once intimate and monumental, stark and complex, drawn with the wit, grace, and authority of one of the great historical novelists.
- Burr: A Novel
1
For readers who can’t get enough of the hit Broadway musical Hamilton, Gore Vidal’s stunning novel about Aaron Burr, the man who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel—and who served as a successful, if often feared, statesman of our fledgling nation. Here is an extraordinary portrait of one of the most complicated—and misunderstood—figures among the Founding Fathers. In 1804, while serving as vice president, Aaron Burr fought a duel with his political nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, and killed him. In 1807, he was arrested, tried, and acquitted of treason. In 1833, Burr is newly married, an aging statesman considered a monster by many. But he is determined to tell his own story, and he chooses to confide in a young New York City journalist named Charles Schermerhorn Schuyler. Together, they explore both Burr's past—and the continuing civic drama of their young nation. Burr is the first novel in Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series, which spans the history of the United States from the Revolution to post-World War II. With their broad canvas and sprawling cast of fictional and historical characters, these novels present a panorama of American politics and imperialism, as interpreted by one of our most incisive and ironic observers.
- 1876: A Novel
3
The third volume of Gore Vidal's magnificent series of historical novels aimed at demythologizing the American past, 1876 chronicles the political scandals and dark intrigues that rocked the United States in its centennial year. Charles Schermerhorn Schuyler, Aaron Burr's unacknowledged son, returns to a flamboyant America after his long, self-imposed European exile. The narrator of Burr has come home to recoup a lost fortune by arranging a suitable marriage for his beautiful daughter, the widowed Princess d'Agrigente, and by ingratiating himself with Samuel Tilden, the favored presidential candidate in the centennial year. With these ambitions and with their own abundant charms, Schuyler and his daughter soon find themselves at the centers of American social and political power at a time when the fading ideals of the young republic were being replaced by the excitement of empire. "A glorious piece of writing," said Jimmy Breslin in Harper's. "Vidal can take history and make it powerful and astonishing." Time concurred: "Vidal has no peers at breathing movement and laughter into the historical past."
- Empire: A Novel
4
While America struggles to define its destiny, beautiful and ambitious Caroline Sanford fights to control her own fate. One of Vidal’s most inspired creations, she is an embodiment of the complex, vigorous young nation. From the back offices of her Washington newspaper, Caroline confronts the two men who threaten to thwart her ambition: William Randolph Hearst and his protégé, Blaise Sanford, Caroline’s half brother. In their struggles for power the lives of brother and sister become intertwined with those of Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt, as well as Astors, Vanderbilts, and Whitneys—all incarnations of America’s Gilded Age. “Mr. Vidal demonstrates a political imagination and insider’s sagacity equaled by no other practicing fiction writer. Like the earlier novels in his historical cycle, Empire is a wonderfully vivid documentary drama.” — The New York Times Book Review
- Hollywood: A Novel
5
It is 1917, and President Woodrow Wilson is about to lead the country into the Great War in Europe. In California, a new industry is born that will irreversibly transform America. Caroline Sanford, the alluring heroine of Empire, discovers the power of moving pictures to manipulate reality as she vaults to screen stardom under the name of Emma Traxler. Just as Caroline must balance her two lives—West Coast movie star and East Coast newspaper publisher and senator’s mistress—so too must America balance its two power centers: Hollywood and Washington. Here is history as only Gore Vidal can re-create it: brimming with intrigue and scandal, peopled by the greats of the silver screen and American politics. “Hollywood shimmers with the illusion of politics and the politics of illusion.” — Chicago Sun-Times “A wonderfully literate and consistently impressive work of fiction that clearly belongs on a shelf with Vidal’s best.” — The New York Times Book Review
- Washington, D.C.: A Novel
6
Washington, D.C., is the final installment in Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire,his acclaimed six-volume series of historical novels about the American past. It offers an illuminating portrait of our republic from the time of the New Deal to the McCar-thy era. Widely regarded as Vidal's ultimate comment on how the American political system degrades those who participate in it, Washington, D.C. is a stunning tale of corruption and diseased ambitions. It traces the fortunes of James Burden Day, a powerful conservative senator who is eyeing the presidency; Clay Overbury, a pragmatic young congressional aide with political aspirations of his own; and Blaise Sanford, a ruthless newspaper tycoon who understands the importance of money and image in modern politics. With characteristic wit and insight, Vidal chronicles life in the nation's capital at a time when these men and others transformed America into "possibly the last empire on earth." "Washington, D.C. may well be the finest of contemporary novels about the capital," said The New Yorker, and the Times Literary Supplement deemed it "a prodigiously skilled and clever performance."
Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal (1925–2012) was born at the United States Military Academy at West Point. His first novel, Williwaw, written when he was 19 years old and serving in the army, appeared in the spring of 1946. He wrote 23 novels, five plays, many screenplays, short stories, well over 200 essays, and a memoir.
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Vidal in Venice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Julian: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The City and the Pillar: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Creation: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Search for the King Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inventing A Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Palimpsest: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gore Vidal: Sexually Speaking: Collected Sex Writings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Messiah: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kalki: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Judgment of Paris Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Death in the Fifth Position Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Live from Golgotha: The Gospel According to Gore Vidal Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Views from a Window: Conversations with Gore Vidal Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTwo Sisters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thieves Fall Out Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Smithsonian Institution: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDuluth: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Death Before Bedtime Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Point to Point Navigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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