The Early Stories: 1953-1975 - Hardcover

Updike, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0241142644 ISBN 13: 9780241142646

Publisher: Hamish Hamilton, 2004

Synopsis

A grand collection of John Updike's inimitable early stories.

Gathering together almost all the short fiction that John Updike published between 1953 and 1975, this collection opens with Updike's autobiographical stories about a young boy growing up during the Depression in a small Pennsylvania town. There follows tales of life away from home, student days, early marriage and young families, and finally Updike's experimental stories on 'The Single Life'. Here, then, is a rich and satisfying feast of Updike - his wit, his easy mastery of language, his genius for recalling the subtleties of ordinary life and the excitements, and perils, of the pursuit of happiness.

About this title

Review:

"Classic gems . . . These stories, like Mr. Updike's finest novels . . . preserve a time and a place through the sorcery of words."--The New York Times

"[Updike is] akin to Coleridge and Shelley, only with an American twist. One story at a time, he [reminds] Americans that in spite of life's largesse, things fail; one sentence at a time, he reveals that through the small details, it can be sublime."--The Denver Post

"Updike's artistry--normally glimpsed in sections, like a person through window slats--is wholly and deeply seen. . . . One reads through the plenitude with delight, expectation, and at all times gratitude."--The Atlantic Monthly

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: Hamish Hamilton
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0241142644
• ISBN 13: 9780241142646
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 864