Dawn Powell: Novels 1944-1962 (LOA #127): My Home Is Far Away / The Locusts Have No King / The Wicked Pavilion / The Golden Spur (Library of America Dawn Powell Edition) - Hardcover

Powell, Dawn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1931082022 ISBN 13: 9781931082020

Publisher: Library of America, 2001

Synopsis

American literature has known few writers capable of the comic élan and full-bodied portraiture that abound in the novels of Dawn Powell. Yet for decades after her death, Powell’s work was out of print, cherished by a small band of admirers. Only recently has there been a rediscovery of the writer Gore Vidal calls “our best comic novelist,” and whom Edmund Wilson considered to be “on a level with Anthony Powell, Evelyn Waugh, and Muriel Spark.” In this, one of two volumes collecting nine novels, The Library of America presents the best of Powell’s quirky, often hilarious, sometimes deeply moving fiction.

My Home Is Far Away (1944), the last of Powell’s novels set in Ohio, is a fictionalized memoir of Powell’s difficult childhood. With The Locusts Have No King (1948), the story of a scholar’s unexpected brush with the temptations of celebrity and riches, Powell resumed her lifelong dissection of New York’s pretensions and glamour. The first of three brilliant postwar satires, it was followed by The Wicked Pavilion (1954), a novel that lays bare its characters’ illusions about love and success against the backdrop of the Café Julien, a relic of a bygone era in the history of Greenwich Village. The volume concludes with Powell’s final novel, The Golden Spur (1962), in which she drew on her time spent among painters at the famed Cedar Tavern for an affectionate if pointed satire on Manhattan’s art world.

Dawn Powell’s New York novels are exactly what she wanted them to be: “crystal in quality, sharp as the skyline, and relentlessly true.”

LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

About this title

About the Author:

Dawn Powell (1896-1965), the author of numerous novels, plays, and story collections, was a vital part of the pre- and postwar Greenwich Village literary scene.

From Library Journal:

Powell was a noteworthy novelist of mid-20th-century America whose satirical observations and keen sense of the complexities of social relationships unfolded into a perceptive chronicle of the two milieus she knew so well the melancholy frustrations of small-town life in Ohio and the brutal sophistication of uptown Manhattan. She enjoyed a reputation in Greenwich Village literary circles for her wit, humor, compassion, and somewhat hedonistic lifestyle. And yet, despite a steady stream of publications throughout her career, she never achieved the popularity, critical acclaim, and financial security she so richly deserved and so desperately sought. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Page (Dawn Powell: A Biography, LJ 9/15/98), Powell's writings have been rescued from literary obscurity and added to the prestigious Library of America series. Collected here are nine novels spanning her prolific career. Volume 1 includes Dance Night; Come Back to Sorrento; Turn, Magic Wheel; Angels on Toast; and A Time To Be Born. Included in Volume 2 are My Home Is Far Away, The Locusts Have No King, The Wicked Pavilion, and The Golden Spur. Page's chronology of Powell's career and his extensive chapter notes promote a deeper understanding of this distinctive literary voice. Together with her diaries and selected letters, these volumes firmly establish Powell's contribution to American literature. Each novel is fairly short, making this set an attractive option for book club members seeking new material. For all serious literature collections. Denise S. Sticha, Murrysville Community Lib., PA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Library of America
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1931082022
• ISBN 13: 9781931082020
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 969