In the Beauty of the Lilies (Penguin Modern Classics) - Softcover

Updike, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 014118857X ISBN 13: 9780141188577

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2006

Synopsis

Taking its title from the "Battle Hymn of the Republic", IN THE BEAUTY OF THE LILIES traces one family's profound journey through four generations--and across the spiritual landscape of twentieth-century America. It is one of John Updike's fullest and finest work of fiction.

About this title

Review:

"Dazzling . . . a book that forces us to reassess the American Dream and the crucial role that faith (and the longing for faith) have played in shaping the national soul."--"The New York Times"
"Stirring and captivating and beautifully written . . . This is the Updike of the Rabbit books, who can take you uphill and down with his grace of vision, his gossamer language, and his merciful, ironic glance at the misery of the human condition."--"The Boston Globe
"
"Updike's genius, his place beside Hawthorne and Nabokov have never been more assured."--George Steiner, "The New Yorker"

Dazzling . . . a book that forces us to reassess the American Dream and the crucial role that faith (and the longing for faith) have played in shaping the national soul. "The New York Times"
Stirring and captivating and beautifully written . . . This is the Updike of the Rabbit books, who can take you uphill and down with his grace of vision, his gossamer language, and his merciful, ironic glance at the misery of the human condition. "The Boston Globe
"
Updike s genius, his place beside Hawthorne and Nabokov have never been more assured. George Steiner, "The New Yorker""

About the Author:

John Updike was born in 1932 in Shillington, Pennsylvania. He is the author of over fifty books, including The Poorhouse Fair; the Rabbit series (Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; Rabbit At Rest); Marry Me; The Witches of Eastwick, which was made into a major feature film; Memories of the Ford Administration; Brazil; In the Beauty of the Lilies; Toward the End of Time; Gertrude and Claudius; and Seek My Face. He has written a number of collections of short stories, including The Afterlife and Other Stories and Licks of Love, which includes a final Rabbit story, Rabbit Remembered. His essays and criticism first appeared in publications such as the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books, and are now collected into numerous volumes. Collected Poems 1953-1993 brings together almost all of his verse, and a new edition of his Selected Poems is forthcoming from Hamish Hamilton.

His novels, stories, and non-fiction collections have won have won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the American Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Rosenthal Award and the Howells Medal.

Updike graduated from Harvard College in 1954, and spent a year at Oxford's Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art. From 1955 to 1957 he was a member of staff at the New Yorker, and he lived in Massachusetts from 1957 until his death in January 2009.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 014118857X
• ISBN 13: 9780141188577
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 512