Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

Charles Bukowski:A Critical And Bibliographical Study.

Rate this book

121 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

7 people want to read

About the author

Hugh Fox

88 books3 followers
Hugh Bernard Fox Jr. (February 12, 1932 – September 4, 2011) was a writer, novelist, poet and anthropologist and one of the founders (with Ralph Ellison, Anais Nin, Paul Bowles, Joyce Carol Oates, Buckminster Fuller and others) of the Pushcart Prize for literature. He has been published in numerous literary magazines and was the first writer to publish a critical study of Charles Bukowski.

Fox was born and raised in Chicago as a devout Catholic, but converted to Judaism in later life. He received a Ph.D. in American Literature from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and was a professor at Michigan State University in the Department of American Thought and Language from 1968 until his retirement in 1999.[5] Hugh Fox died on September 4, 2011 in East Lansing, MI.

Fox was the author of over sixty-two books, including six books on anthropology. He wrote over fifty-four books on poetry and many volumes on short fiction, and published many novels. Fox also wrote a number of books on pre-Columbian American cultures and catastrophism. Some of these works were labeled in the pseudoarchaeological category, such as his book Gods of the Cataclysm: A Revolutionary Investigation of Man and his Gods Before and After the Great Cataclysm (1976). Some of his books with these themes have been compared to the work of Ignatius Donnelly.

His book Gods of the Cataclysm received a number of positive reviews. Editor Curt Johnson praised the book claiming “Hugh Fox’s Gods of the Cataclysm...ought to be required reading for cultural historians of all disciplines.”[7]

The Ibbetson Street Press of Somerville, MA published Way, Way Off the Road: The Memoirs of an Invisible Man by Hugh Fox with an introduction by Doug Holder in 2006. This book recounts Fox's life and the people he knew from his extensive associations with the "Small Press" marketplace over the years, including Charles Bukowski, A.D. Winans, Sam Cornish, Len Fulton, and numerous other people.

Fox's final works were:

The Dream of the Black Topaze Chamber (Skylight Press, 2011)
Reunion (Luminist Press, 2011)
Who, Me? A Memoir (Sunbury Press, 2011)
Immortal Jaguar (Skylight Press, 2011)
The Lord Said Unto Satan (Post Mortem Press, 2011)
Depths & Dragons (Skylight Press, 2010)
Peace/La Paix: Ballades et contes en quete verite (Higganum Hill, 2008)
The Complete Poetry of Hugh Fox 1966-2007 (World Audience, 2008)
Defiance (Higganum Hill, 2007)
Opening the Door to French Film (World Audience, 2007)


Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
0 (0%)
4 stars
3 (100%)
3 stars
0 (0%)
2 stars
0 (0%)
1 star
0 (0%)
Displaying 1 of 1 review
Profile Image for Mat.
611 reviews69 followers
November 19, 2024
This is a fantastic book of literary criticism on Bukowski's first ten years of publications, which were for the most part, poetry.

I enjoyed this book so much that I read it through twice. Fox gives a nicely thorough but measured analysis of Bukowski's 1960s publications. As he goes through them chronologically, he points back to previous styles and notes how Buk's way of writing changed over the years, sometimes depending on which publisher he was dealing with. (This is, obviously, in the years before he met John Martin, who went on to open the legendary Black Sparrow Press).

I didn't think of Bukowski as a surrealist poet before I had read this book and I guess in his early years, there is much surrealist imagery there. Fortunately, Buk expanded and found his own indelible and lovable style which comes off the page with such ease and grace that he makes it look easy. (As someone who has tried his hand at writing himself, let me tell you - it's not).

The only one gripe I have with this book is the ridiculous amount of TYPOS I found everywhere, almost on every page! I couldn't believe that my copy was about the third printing or something and they STILL had that many typos. Fox or whoever did the editing should be shot for the terrible proofreading done on this book.

Apart from that (and the typos are so numerous that it does become annoying after a while), this is a very good, early analysis of Buk's poetry.

Highly recommended to all Buk fans.
Displaying 1 of 1 review

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.