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Hamilton Basso

Born

in New Orleans, Louisiana., The United States

September 05, 1904

Died

May 13, 1964

Website

http://www.knowla.org/entry/649/

Genre

History, Nonfiction, Biography

Influences

William Faulkner, Sherwood Anderson, Lyle Saxon, Edmund Willson

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Joseph Hamilton Basso (who went by the name Hamilton) was an influential journalist and the author of eleven novels.While writing for New Republic, Time, Saturday Review, and the New Yorker, among other publications, Basso published novels, most set in either Louisiana or South Carolina. Throughout his writing, Basso attempted to refute romantic myths of the old South by portraying minorities—women, foreigners, and people of color—realistically rather than stereotypically. Basso is best known for his popular 1954 novel The View from Pompey’s Head, part of an unfinished trilogy that includes the novel The Light Infantry Ball. The latter was nominated for the 1960 National Book Award. Basso was also the winner of the 1940 Southern Authors Awa Joseph Hamilton Basso (who went by the name Hamilton) was an influential journalist and the author of eleven novels.While writing for New Republic, Time, Saturday Review, and the New Yorker, among other publications, Basso published novels, most set in either Louisiana or South Carolina. Throughout his writing, Basso attempted to refute romantic myths of the old South by portraying minorities—women, foreigners, and people of color—realistically rather than stereotypically. Basso is best known for his popular 1954 novel The View from Pompey’s Head, part of an unfinished trilogy that includes the novel The Light Infantry Ball. The latter was nominated for the 1960 National Book Award. Basso was also the winner of the 1940 Southern Authors Award for his fourth novel, Days Before Lent.

Born September 5, 1904, in New Orleans, Basso was the son of Italian Americans. In 1922, he enrolled in Tulane University to study law. While at Tulane, he became friends with a group of aspiring writers living in New Orleans, including William Faulkner, Sherwood Anderson, Lyle Saxon, and Edmund Wilson, each of whom contributed to the Double Dealer, a magazine subtitled “The National Magazine of the South.” Inspired by his conversations with these writers, Basso dropped out of Tulane in 1926, three months before his scheduled graduation, to begin a career as a journalist. He went to work as a reporter for the New Orleans Morning Tribune, the New Orleans Item, and finally the New Orleans Times-Picayune, where he became the night city editor.

Encouraged by his friends at the Double Dealer, Basso published his first novel, Relics and Angels, in 1929. In 1930, he married Etolia Moore Simmons, with whom he had a son. A biography of Confederate general P. G. T. Beauregard, Beauregard: The Great Creole, soon followed and won its author critical acclaim. Basso also worked for New Republic, frequently writing about the South, and in 1935 he became its associate editor.

In the early 1940s, Basso moved to New York, where he wrote for Time magazine and then the New Yorker, where he worked as associate editor from 1944 to 1961. In the 1950s, two of his novels, Days Before Lent (retitled Holiday for Sinners) and The View From Pompey’s Head, were made into movies. Basso also wrote a book of travel sketches titled A Quota of Seaweed and edited a reissue of W. L. Herndon’s 1842 Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon. He also edited The World from Jackson Square, a collection of essays about New Orleans, with his wife. He was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters, where he also served as vice president.

Basso died in New Haven, Connecticut, on May 13, 1964. Today his work is frequently studied within the context of the southern literary renaissance, a sudden outpouring of literature by southern writers between World War I and the end of World War II. Like many of his colleagues at the Double Dealer, often cited as key players in the renaissance, Basso’s writing shows a willingness to critically examine his region of birth. Frequently, Basso expressed his criticism through a protagonist who, in many of his novels, returns to the South (after living somewhere else) and encounters social injustice. Unlike writers who romanticized the antebellum plantation South and its aristocratic traditions, Basso and his cohorts expressed a desire to see change and progress, particularly in terms of race relations.
His 1959 novel The Light Infantry Ball, a prequel to The View from Pompey's Head, was a finalist for the 1960 National Book Award.

Basso died in 1964, at age 59, in Weston, Connecticut. ...more

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Hamilton Basso’s books

Average rating: 3.77 · 173 ratings · 25 reviews · 43 distinct works • Similar authors

	The View from Pompey's Head: A Novel 3.87 avg rating — 120 ratings — published 1954 — 22 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Light Infantry Ball 3.57 avg rating — 23 ratings — published 1959 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Touch of the Dragon 3.25 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 1964 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Days Before Lent 3.25 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 2008 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Beauregard: The Great Creole really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 1933	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Greenroom 3.50 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 2008 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Court House Square 3.50 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 2008 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Relics and Angels it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Sun in Capricorn it was ok 2.00 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 2008 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Cinnamon Seed really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2008	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Hamilton Basso (?)

“(Vice President) Garner has taken his personal smallness, his lack of generosity, and forged it into a political principle. He has no imagination, no convictions, and he substitutes political cynicism for social understanding.”
― Hamilton Basso

tags: generosity, leadership, vision

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Polls

What shall we read in September, 2020? Books published 1980 or before.

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers

26 votes 37.1%

Pale Horse, Pale Rider, by Katherine Anne Porter

14 votes 20.0%

A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole

14 votes 20.0%

Flags in the Dust, by William Faulkner

8 votes 11.4%

The View from Pompey's Head, by Hamilton Basso

5 votes 7.1%

Men of the Mountains, by Jesse Stuart

3 votes 4.3%

70 total votes

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Hamilton Basso’s Followers (6)

Hamilton Basso

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Hamilton Basso’s books