Reading order
Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Letters of William Gaddis | 2013 | William Gaddis | Buy |
The Letters of William Gaddis was published in 2013 by Dalkey Archive Press, edited by Steven Moore. The collection gathers correspondence Gaddis wrote across his lifetime, from his early years struggling to complete his first novel The Recognitions through to his late career recognition and the publication of his final works. The letters cover his literary relationships with other writers, his often troubled dealings with publishers and editors, and his private views on literature, culture, and American society.
Gaddis was famously private during his lifetime and gave very few interviews, making the letters an important primary source for understanding his development as a writer. The correspondence reveals the long gestation of his novels and the financial pressures he faced as a literary writer who could not live on fiction alone, spending decades working in corporate communications while attempting to write JR and his later novels. The letters also document his friendships with other writers and his reactions to his own critical reception.
This volume is primarily of interest to readers who have already engaged with Gaddis’s four major novels and want to understand the biographical and intellectual context behind them. It is an essential resource for serious scholars of postwar American fiction.