American Fictions

by Elizabeth Hardwick

"Just as Edwin Denby, Clement Greenburg, and Pauline Kael transformed the nature of criticism in the fields of dance, art, and film, respectively, Hardwick has redefined the possibilities of the literary essay."
--The New Yorker

A brilliant tour of a century American writers, from the novels of Melville, Wharton and James to the fictions of Margaret Fuller, Sylvia Plath and Norman Mailer.  Twenty-five years ago, Elizabeth Hardwick's now classic essay "Seduction and Betrayal" helped  pioneer the study of women in fiction, both as writers and as characters.  American Fictions gathers for the first time Hardwick's portraits of America's greatest writers.  Many of these pieces double as individual reminiscences about close friends, including Mary McCarthy, Katherine Anne Porter and Edmund Wilson.  Hardwick has achieved a permanent place in American letters for her sharp and elegant style.  Her essays are themselves a work of literature.

Genres: Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Essays

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Elizabeth Hardwick was a formidable American literary critic, novelist, and short story writer who reshaped the landscape of American intellectual life. After earning degrees from the University of Kentucky and pursuing graduate studies at Columbia, she gained notoriety for her 1959 essay "The Decline of Book Reviewing." This scathing critique directly inspired her to co-found The New York Review of Books in 1963. A prolific essayist and novelist, her major works include the novel Sleepless Nights and influential criticism such as Seduction and Betrayal. Hardwick was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and mentored a generation of writers at Barnard and Columbia. Her posthumously published collections continue to cement her legacy as one of the twentieth century’s most brilliant prose stylists.

Reviews

[Patrick McCoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elizabeth Hardwick has been known as one of the great critics of the last 50 years on par with someone like Edmund Wilson. The New Yorker’s James Woods listed her as an influence. So I recently read a collection of her work called American Fictions. It had some very intriguing essays on writers from a broad spectrum of America’s literary canon: early masters like Melville, Wharton and James-lesser know feminist stars like Margaret Fuller, Djuna Barnes, Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Plath, and Mary McCarthy-not to mention many of my favorites that span the years before contemporary writers and these include O’Neil, Fitzgerald, Nabakov and the a fore mentioned Wilson. Some of the more recent and contemporary stars included Roth, Mailer, Cheever, Capote, Updike, and Didion. She has inspired me to go back and read the early stories and novels of Richard Ford as well. I also enjoyed her essay “Seduction and Betrayal” which discusses these elements in great works of literature.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hardwick was a stalwart of the NY Review of Books; this book appears to be a best of (or all?) of her literary essays, mostly book reviews. As many collections, some essays were better than others but there are a lot of nuggets that will promote further reading an exploration.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished her essay on John Reed, who I hadn't thought of for years. Hardwick's synthesis of the early years of the Russian Rev. is brilliant. Her choices - a prime quote from Trotsky's "The History of the Russian Revolution," her honest appraisal of Reed and of Ten Days That Shook the World (deservedly complimentary) - trustworthy. Reading about earlier figures, Wharton, Henry James...made me feel like I was an English major again. Her analysis of Bartleby is brilliant. Cannot recommend this essay collection enough.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good essays: for writers, about writers. Remove a star if you're not one. Add one if you are one.

Melville Wharton M. Fuller W. James J. Reed Stein Sandburg Masters E. Millay M. McCarthy Nabokov Plath Cheever Updike Roth Didion E. Wilson Capote Mailer and more