Letters Fictions Lives

In this unique and long-awaited volume, Michael Anesko documents the literary cross-fertilization between Henry James and William Dean Howells, collecting 151 letters, nearly all the extant correspondence between the two men, as well as the most significant critical commentary James wrote on Howells and Howells wrote on James. Scholars have long recognized the peculiar importance of the relationship between these two exponents of realistic fiction--their mutual respect and occasional animosity. But the record of their affinities and substantial differences has never before been so amply and compellingly established. Containing dozens of previously unpublished letters by James, and featuring a detailed biographical chronology as well as extensive interpretive commentaries that meticulously chart the development of this remarkable literary friendship, Letters, Fictions, Lives, edited to the highest standards of scholarly excellence, will prove an invaluable resource for scholars and students of James and Howells, and will hold great interest for dedicated readers of their fiction and for those studying epistolary issues and literary influence between contemporaries.

“A funny and realistic coming-out tale... The rounded characters deal with betrayal and honesty and love and near tragedy in ways teen readers, gay or straight, will recognize. Just the right touch of humor, mystery, drama, and romance should earn this a place on every teen bookshelf.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “We need stories that give courage to kids struggling to be honest with themselves and others about who they are. Logan tells one that will give you hope and make you laugh.” — Robbie Rogers, LA Galaxy midfielder, former midfielder for the US National Soccer Team “James and his friends have deep, meaningful, complex bonds... Logan’s look at a boy reconciling his private and public selves is well written and affecting.” — School Library Journal “Logan handles his material exceptionally well, building suspense as he dramatizes both the downside of being in the closet and the realistic complications of coming out, while creating, in James, an unusually thoughtful and sympathetic character... [a] satisfying debut.” — Booklist “A wonderful book that will encourage young readers to seek authenticity and stand up for their true selves... LGBT teens, as well as straight, will recognize much of their lives in this story. Highly recommended.” — Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA) “Logan tackles the complexities of coming out thoughtfully, presenting realistic (and not always fully supportive) responses to James’s revelation.” — Publishers Weekly “[James’] painful, funny experiences with family, love, and friends will resonate with many teens.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

“Dear Ava, I loved your book.” —Award-winning actress Emma Watson For fans of Kathleen Glasgow and Amber Smith, Ava Dellaira writes about grief, love, and family with a haunting and often heartbreaking beauty in this emotionally stirring, critically acclaimed debut novel, Love Letters to the Dead. It begins as an assignment for English class: Write a letter to a dead person. Laurel chooses Kurt Cobain because her sister, May, loved him. And he died young, just like May did. Soon, Laurel has a notebook full of letters to people like Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, Amelia Earhart, Heath Ledger, and more—though she never gives a single one of them to her teacher. She writes about starting high school, navigating new friendships, falling in love for the first time, learning to live with her splintering family. And, finally, about the abuse she suffered while May was supposed to be looking out for her. Only then, once Laurel has written down the truth about what happened to herself, can she truly begin to accept what happened to May. And only when Laurel has begun to see her sister as the person she was—lovely and amazing and deeply flawed—can she begin to discover her own path.

“At once humorous and heart-rending . . . The evocative style of Luanne Rice meshes splendidly with Joseph Monninger’s in a moving collaboration [that] brilliantly illuminates the precious value of relationships.”—Wichita Falls Times Record News “For those who love and those who hope to love again.”—Lincoln Journal Star Sam and Hadley West are both trying to survive a shared, unthinkable loss. For Sam, a sports journalist, acceptance means an arduous trek by dogsled across the Alaskan wilderness. For Hadley, it means renting a benignly haunted, salt-soaked cottage off the Maine coast, where she begins to paint again. Waiting for their divorce to be finalized, they begin to exchange letters, filled with longing and truths they’ve never before voiced, as they recall their marriage—its magic moments and its challenges—and rediscover the reason they fell in love in the first place. In this remarkable collaboration, acclaimed writers Luanne Rice and Joseph Monninger combine their unique talents to create, through a series of searching, intimate letters, a powerful novel of an estranged husband and wife—and the moment that changed the course of their lives forever. “It’s hard for the reader to remember that she is reading fiction and not eavesdropping on personal correspondence. . . . A journey of discovery that celebrates the beauty of letter writing, an art fast disappearing.”—Booklist “Exquisite . . . a story of hope, healing and possibilities.”—Concord Monitor

Here's what I tell my students on the first day when I teach one of my creative writing courses: You will be published if you possess three qualities—talent, passion, and discipline. In Write Away, New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth George offers would-be writers exactly what they need to know about how to construct a novel. She provides a detailed overview of the craft and gives helpful instruction on all elements of writing, from setting and plot to technique and process. To illustrate her points, George presents excerpts from a number of well-known writers, including Barbara Kingsolver, Harper Lee, E. M. Forster, John Irving, Toni Morrison, Stephen King, Ernest Hemingway, and Alice Hoffman. In addition to being a clear and concise guide to fiction writing, Write Away also opens a window into the life of Elizabeth George. It reveals the inspiring personal story of how the distinguished author came to be published and how she meticulously researches and crafts her novels. I have a love-hate relationship with the writing life. I wouldn't wish to have any other kind of life . . . and on the other hand, I wish it were easier. And it never is. The reward comes sentence by sentence. The reward comes in the unexpected inspiration. The reward comes from creating a character who lives and breathes and is perfectly real. But such effort it takes to attain the reward! I would never have believed it would take such effort. George's solid understanding of the craft is conveyed in the enticing manner of a true storyteller, making Write Away not only a marvelous, interesting, and informative book but also a glimpse inside the world of a beloved writer.

Besides the groundbreaking novels and stories that brought him fame, William Faulkner throughout his life wrote letters—to his publisher, his lovers, his family, and his friends. In this first major study of epistolarity in Faulkner's work, James G. Watson examines Faulkner's personal correspondence as a unique second canon of writing, separate from his literary canon with its many fictional letters but developing along parallel lines. By describing the similarity of forms and conventions in Faulkner's personal and fictional correspondence, Watson clearly demonstrates that Faulkner's personal experience as a writer of letters significantly shaped his imaginative work early and late. Letters are always about themselves; they re-create a world between the sender and the receiver. In this illuminating study, Faulkner's personal letters are treated as a form of reflexive writing: first-person narratives in which Sender self-consciously portrays Self to a specific Receiver, likewise portrayed in the letter-text. This duality of actual experience and imaginative re-creation measures the personal distances between the life of the writer and the written self-image. It reveals that letters are at once fragments of autobiography and fictions of self. Such "laws of letters" apply equally to the letters that appear throughout Faulkner's novels and stories. The twenty-one letters and telegrams in The Sound and the Fury, for example, portray character, propel plot, and convey important themes of failed communication and broken identity. From Soldiers' Pay to his last work, Faulkner's carefully lettered canon of fiction is dramatic evidence of his understanding of epistolarity and of the extent to which he adapted letters, including some of his own, to shape his fictional world.

For the first time, novelist Iris Murdoch's life in her own words, from girlhood to her last years Iris Murdoch was an acclaimed novelist and groundbreaking philosopher whose life reflected her unconventional beliefs and values. But what has been missing from biographical accounts has been Murdoch's own voice—her life in her own words. Living on Paper—the first major collection of Murdoch's most compelling and interesting personal letters—gives, for the first time, a rounded self-portrait of one of the twentieth century's greatest writers and thinkers. With more than 760 letters, fewer than forty of which have been published before, the book provides a unique chronicle of Murdoch's life from her days as a schoolgirl to her last years. The result is the most important book about Murdoch in more than a decade. The letters show a great mind at work—struggling with philosophical problems, trying to bring a difficult novel together, exploring spirituality, and responding pointedly to world events. They also reveal her personal life, the subject of much speculation, in all its complexity, especially in letters to lovers or close friends, such as the writers Brigid Brophy, Elias Canetti, and Raymond Queneau, philosophers Michael Oakeshott and Philippa Foot, and mathematician Georg Kreisel. We witness Murdoch's emotional hunger, her tendency to live on the edge of what was socially acceptable, and her irreverence and sharp sense of humor. We also learn how her private life fed into the plots and characters of her novels, despite her claims that they were not drawn from reality. Direct and intimate, these letters bring us closer than ever before to Iris Murdoch as a person, making for an extraordinary reading experience.

Contributors include Lee K. Abbott, Charles Baxter, Ray Bradbury, Raymond Carver, Shelby Foote, John Gardner, Joyce Carol Oates, John Updike, Tobias Wolff, and Flannery O'Connor, among others.

Why would Alan and Elizabeth want to die after a nearly four-decade-long blissful marriage and a seemingly idyllic life? Maybe the letters they left behind for the people they cared about would unveil their reasons. But as these letters were opened and read, they only revealed the couple's thoughts about their relationships. They resurrected memories that might have long since been forgotten. These were their final goodbyes. Alan and Elizabeth wanted to leave a lasting legacy of who they were and how they lived their lives. It was only when the last letter was read at their funeral that the reasons they committed suicide were divulged. But was that what really happened?