Selected Works

by Stephen Vincent Benét

A wide spectrum of themes and emotions are dealt with in this anthology of Benet's prose and poetry, which comprise ballads, romance, adventure, narratives, and pure fiction

Genres: Poetry, Classics

487 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1942

About the author

Stephen Vincent Benét, best known brother of William Rose Benét, also wrote John Brown's Body , his narrative poem of Civil War, in 1928. See John Brown.

A mother bore Stephen Vincent Benét into a military family. His father and Laura Benét, his sibling, also widely appreciated literature.

Benét attended Yale University and published Five Men and Pompey in 1915 and The Drug-Shop , collection, in 1917. A year of military service interrupted his studies; he worked as a cipher clerk in the same department as James Grover Thurber. He submitted his third volume of in place of a thesis, and Yale graduated him in 1919.

Stephen Vincent Benét published The Beginning of Wisdom , his first novel, in 1921. Benét then moved to France to continue his studies at the Sorbonne and returned to the United States in 1923 with the Rosemary Carr, his new wife.

Benét succeeded in many different literary forms, which included novels, short stories, screenplays, radio broadcasts, and a libretto for an opera, which Douglas Moore based on "The Devil and Daniel Webster." For his most famous long work, which interweaves historical and fictional characters to relate important events, from the raid on Harper's Ferry to surrender of Robert Edward Lee at Appomattox, he received the Pulitzer Prize in 1929.

During lifetime, Benét received the story prize of O. Henry, the Roosevelt Medal, and a second Pulitzer Prize in 1944 for the posthumously-published Western Star, the first part of an epic, based on American history. At the age of 44 years, Benét suffered a heart attack and died in New York City.

Reviews

[Chris Aldridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mindwebs audiobook ##32 is a 1937 story from this collection “The Place of the Gods” aka “By the Waters of Babylon” .

A sort of biblical style of story about a young man searching for taboo metal - a priests task. He goes on a quest with his bow and arrows to the forbidden places, it becomes apparent that his “Gods” were humans and we are in the far future when civilisation has collapsed. I would guess it’s set about 2150, the Gods had polluted the world and their cities had died. Excellent insight and prophecy...

32 Mindwebs-771202_ThePlaceOfTheG Stephen Vincent Benet

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rated: B

But all of them are sure they know God's will.
I am the only man who does not know it. (from John Brown's Body)

[Chris Graham-Herring · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Brown's Body is an amazing poem. The research involved alone...wow.