United States: Essays 1952-1992

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Crown, Sep 25, 2018 - History - 1312 pages
A compilation of 114 classic essays from Gore Vidal. 

"A marvelous compendium of sharp wit and independent judgment that confirms his status as a man of letters."
Publishers Weekly


From the age of Eisenhower to the dawning of the Clinton era, Gore Vidal’s United States offers an incomparably rich tapestry of American intellectual and political life in a tumultuous period. It also provides the best, most sustained exposure possible to the most wide-ranging, acute, and original literary intelligence of the postWorld War II years. United States is an essential book in the canon of twentieth-century American literature and an endlessly fascinating work.
 

Selected pages

Contents

THE GOLDEN BOWL OF HENRY JAMES
LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH LOVES THE ADVERB
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
ON THE SKIDS AGAIN
BERNARD SHAWS HEARTBREAK HOUSE
MAUGHAMS HALF HALF
FORDS
THE SEXUS OF HENRY MILLER

LOVE LOVE LOVE
THE TOP TEN BEST SELLERS
THEORIES OF THE NEW NOVEL
THE HACKS OF ACADEME
THE MATTER OF FICTION
THE NOVEL OF IDEAS
MEREDITH
THE BOOKCHAT OF HENRY JAMES
HENRY MILLER AND LAWRENCE DURRELL
THIS CRITIC AND THIS GIN AND ECKERMANN HIS
Title Page
STATE OF THE UNION
AUTHORS NOTE
ALSO BY GORE VIDAL
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About the author (2018)

Gore Vidal is the author of twenty-two novels, five plays, many screenplays and short stories, more than two hundred essays, and a memoir. He is the author of the novel The Golden Age, and the essay collection, The Last Empire: Essays 1993-2000.

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