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William Keepers Maxwell, Jr.
| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: William Maxwell |
| Irish Literature Companion: Revd William Hamilton Maxwell |
Maxwell, Revd W[illiam] H[amilton] (1792-1850), novelist and historian. Born in Newry, Co. Down, and educated at TCD, he became Church of Ireland vicar of Balla, Co. Mayo. A life-long enthusiasm for military life, apparently frustrated by parental wishes, resulted in Stories of Waterloo (1829) and The Bivouac (1837) which earned him the name of father of the military novel. His world of irresponsible young men let loose in the playground of colonial Ireland set the tone for much of Anglo-Irish fiction, notably the ‘rollicking’ novels of Charles Lever who did not scruple to plagiarize him. Maxwell fought back with diffuse three-volume works such as Hector O'Halloran and His Man Mark Antony O'Toole (1842), Captain O'Sullivan, a Gentleman on Half-Pay (1846), and Luck is Everything, or The Adventures of Brian O'Linn (1856). Wild Sports of the West (1832), his best-known work, is a compendium of hunting-and-fishing lore and melodramatic stories of the marriage-by-capture variety. Maxwell's disapproval of rebellion was signalled to the Young Irelanders in a work extravagantly titled The Irish Movements, Their Rise, Progress, and Certain Termination, with a few Broad Hints to Patriots and Pikemen (1848).
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Jr. William Keepers Maxwell |
Maxwell, William Keepers, Jr., 1908–2000, American novelist, short-story writer, and editor, b. Lincoln, Ill. Educated at the Univ. of Illinois and Harvard, he began his career as a teacher, but soon turned to writing. In his fiction the discreet and courtly Maxwell often handled such traditional themes as growing up and the impact of death with a deft, spare, and gentle realism, frequently setting his tales in the early-20th-cent. Midwest of his youth. His six novels include Bright Center of Heaven (1934), They Came like Swallows (1937), Time Will Darken It (1948), and So Long, See You Tomorrow (1980). His stories are collected in All the Days and Nights (1995) and his essays in The Outermost Dream (1989). Maxwell also wrote children's stories and a memoir, Ancestors (1972). As the superb and subtle fiction editor of The New Yorker magazine for 40 years (1936–76), he helped to shape the work of many of the century's finest writers, including Vladimir Nabakov, John Updike, J. D. Salinger, John Cheever, Flannery O'Connor, Frank O'Hara, Eudora Welty, and Isaac Bashevis Singer.
Bibliography
See biography by B. Burkhardt (2005); M. Steinman, ed., The Element of Lavishness: Letters of Sylvia Townsend Warner and William Maxwell, 1938–1978 (2001); C. Baxter et al., ed., A William Maxwell Portrait (2004).
| Works: Works by William Maxwell |
(1908-2000)
| 1934 | Bright Center of Heaven. Maxwell's first novel concerns a group of people living in a Wisconsin farm boardinghouse. The book helps land him a position at The New Yorker in 1936, where he would work, mainly as a fiction editor, until 1976. |
| 1937 | They Came Like Swallows. One of the most highly praised of the author's books, the novel dramatizes the impact of the Spanish influenza epidemic on a close-knit family. |
| 1945 | The Folded Leaf. The most acclaimed novel by the longtime New Yorker editor is a sensitive treatment of a friendship between two youths from high school through college, set in the Midwest during the 1920s. |
| 1948 | Time Will Darken It. The fiction editor of The New Yorker sets this novel in a small Illinois town in 1912, chronicling how a family is affected by a visit from relatives from Mississippi. |
| 1989 | The Outermost Dream. A collection of essays and reviews concerning the works of figures such as Virginia Woolf and E. B. White. |
| Quotes By: William Maxwell |
Quotes:
"Happiness is the light on the water. The water is cold and dark and deep."
| Wikipedia: William Keepers Maxwell, Jr. |
William Keepers Maxwell, Jr. (August 16, 1908 – July 31, 2000) was an American novelist and editor.
Contents |
Life
Maxwell was born in Lincoln, Illinois, and attended the University of Illinois and Harvard University. He was best known as the fiction editor of The New Yorker magazine for forty years (1936-1975), where he worked with writers such as Vladimir Nabokov, John Updike, J.D. Salinger, John Cheever, Mavis Gallant, Frank O'Connor, Larry Woiwode, John O'Hara, Eudora Welty, and Isaac Bashevis Singer. As an editor Welty wrote of him: "For fiction writers, he was the headquarters."
He also wrote six highly acclaimed novels, a number of short stories and essays, children's stories, and a memoir, Ancestors (1972). His award-winning fiction, which is increasingly seen as some of the most important of the 20th Century, has recurring themes of childhood, family, loss and lives changed quietly and irreparably. Much of his work is autobiographical, particularly concerning the loss of his mother when he was 10 years old growing up in the rural Midwest of America and the house where he lived at the time, which he referred to as the "Wunderkammer" or "Chamber of Wonders". He wrote of his loss "It happened too suddenly, with no warning, and we none of us could believe it or bear it... the beautiful, imaginative, protected world of my childhood swept away."
Since his death in 2000 several works of biography have appeared, including A William Maxwell Portrait: Memories and Appreciations (W. W. Norton & Co., 2004), My Mentor: A Young Man's Friendship with William Maxwell by Alec Wilkinson (Houghton-Mifflin, 2002), and William Maxwell: A Literary Life by Barbara Burkhardt (University of Illinois Press, 2005).
In 2008 the Library of America published the first of two collections of William Maxwell, Early Novels and Stories, Christopher Carduff editor. His collected edition of William Maxwell's fiction, published to mark the writer's centenary, was completed by a second volume, Later Novels and Stories in the fall of 2008.
William Maxwell was married to the former Emily Gilman Noyes of St. Paul, Minnesota.[1] They had two daughters, Katherine and Emily.
Bibliography
Incomplete - to be updated
Novels
- Bright Center of Heaven (1934)
- They Came Like Swallows (1937)
- An autobiographical novella about the cruel impact of the 1918 flu epidemic, as seen through the eyes of an 8-year-old midwestern child and his family
- The Folded Leaf (1945)
- Time Will Darken It (1948)
- The Chateau (1961)
- So Long, See You Tomorrow (1980) (Winner of the American Book Award)
- An aging man remembers a boyhood friendship he had in 1920s Illinois which falters following a murder.
Short-story collections
- The Heavenly Tenants (1946)
- Stories (1956)
- The Old Man and the Railroad Crossing and Other Tales (1966)
- Over by the River, and Other Stories (1977)
- Five Tales (1988)
- Billie Dyer and Other Stories (1992)
- All The Days and Nights: The Collected Stories of William Maxwell (1995)
- Mrs. Donald's Dog Bun and His Home Away from Home (1995)
- Early Novels and Stories (2008)
- the woman who had no eyes for small details
Non-fiction
- Ancestors: A Family History (memoir) (1972)
- The Outermost Dream (essay collection) (1989)
Collections
- Early Novels and Stories: Bright Center of Heaven / They Came Like Swallows / The Folded Leaf / Time Will Darken It / Stories 1938-1956 (Christopher Carduff, ed., New York: Library of America, 2008) ISBN 978-1-59853-026-1
- Later Novels and Stories: The Château / So Long, See You Tomorrow / Stories and Improvisations 1957 - 1999 (Christopher Carduff, ed., New York: Library of America, 2008)
Articles
- Maxwell, William (15 January 1950). "Department of Amplification". The New Yorker 24 (47): 73-76. Pension Gallia, Martinique.
External links
- One of several NPR interviews with Maxwell
- An in-depth essay concerning the themes of Maxwell's fiction
- Quotes by William Maxwell
- Video of Maxwell reading a poem by A.E. Housman
- "Social Consciousness in William Maxwell's Writings Based on Lincoln, Illinois"
- A Master is Given His Due, The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 5, 2008
References
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Learn More
 | Keepers (disambiguation) |
| William Maxwell |
| Lincoln, Illinois |
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 | Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Irish Literature Companion. The Concise Oxford Companion to Irish Literature. Copyright © 1996, 2000, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Works. The Chronology of American Literature, edited by Daniel S. Burt. Copyright © 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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