Elizabeth Hardwick (writer)

{{short description|American writer and literary critic (1916–2007)}}

{{Infobox writer

| name = Elizabeth Hardwick

| honorific_prefix =

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| image = Elizabeth Hardwick (writer).jpg

| caption = Hardwick in the 1980s

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| birth_date = {{birth date|1916|7|27}}

| birth_place = Lexington, Kentucky, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|2007|12|2|1916|7|27}}

| death_place = New York City, U.S.

| alma_mater = University of Kentucky (BA, MA)
Columbia University

| occupation = {{flatlist|

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| spouse = {{marriage|Robert Lowell
|1949|1972|reason=div}}

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| awards = Guggenheim Fellowship
American Academy of Arts and Letters (1977)

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}}

Elizabeth Bruce Hardwick (July 27, 1916 – December 2, 2007) was an American literary critic, novelist, and short story writer.{{cite news|last=Lehmann-Haupt|first=Christopher|author-link=Christopher Lehmann-Haupt|title=Elizabeth Hardwick, Writer, Dies at 91|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/obituaries/04cnd-hardwick.html|access-date=April 19, 2019|work=The New York Times|date=December 4, 2007}}

Early life and education

Elizabeth Bruce Hardwick was born as the eighth of eleven children in Lexington, Kentucky, on July 27, 1916, to strict Protestant parents, the daughter of Eugene Allen Hardwick, a plumbing and heating contractor, and Mary (née Ramsey) Hardwick.

She graduated from the University of Kentucky with a BA in 1938 and with an MA in 1939. She then entered the PhD program at Columbia University, though withdrew from graduate study in 1941 to concentrate on writing. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1947.{{Cite web|url=http://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/elizabeth-hardwick/|title=John Simon Guggenheim Foundation {{!}} Elizabeth Hardwick|website=www.gf.org|access-date=March 8, 2016}}

Career

In 1959, Hardwick published "The Decline of Book Reviewing" in Harper's Magazine, a generally harsh and even scathing critique of book reviews published in American periodicals of the time. She published four books of criticism: A View of My Own (1962), Seduction and Betrayal (1974), Bartleby in Manhattan (1983), and Sight-Readings (1998). In 1961, she edited The Selected Letters of William James.

The 1962 New York City newspaper strike helped inspire Hardwick, Robert Lowell, Jason Epstein, Barbara Epstein, and Robert B. Silvers to found The New York Review of Books, a publication that became as much a habit for many readers as The New York Times Book Review, which Hardwick had eviscerated in her 1959 essay.{{cite news| url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/elizabeth-hardwick-writer-cofounder-of-the-new-york-review-of-books-and-longsuffering-wife-of-robert-lowell-763767.html|title=Elizabeth Hardwick: Writer, co-founder of The New York Review of Books and long-suffering wife of Robert Lowell|date=December 8, 2007|author=Paul Bailey|newspaper=The Independent}}

In the 1970s and early 1980s, Hardwick taught writing seminars at Barnard College and Columbia University's School of the Arts, Writing Division. She gave forthright critiques of student writing and was a mentor to students she considered promising.{{cite magazine|url=http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2893/the-art-of-fiction-no-87-elizabeth-hardwick|title=Elizabeth Hardwick, The Art of Fiction No. 87|magazine=The Paris Review|date=Summer 1985|author=Darryl Pinckney}}

She was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1996.{{cite web|title=Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter H|url=http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterH.pdf|publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences|access-date=July 25, 2014}} In 2000, she published a short biography, Herman Melville, in Viking Press's Penguin Lives series.

In 2008, the Library of America selected Hardwick's account of Caryl Chessman's crimes for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American True Crime writing. A collection of her short fiction, The New York Stories of Elizabeth Hardwick, was published posthumously in 2010,{{cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/aug/29/new-york-stories-elizabeth-hardwick| title=The New York Stories of Elizabeth Hardwick| work=The Observer | date=August 29, 2010| author=Tim Adams}} as was The Collected Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick in 2017.{{cite news|last=Garner|first=Dwight|author-link=Dwight Garner|title=The Collected Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick Gives Off a Bright Light|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/books/review-elizabeth-hardwick-collected-essays.html|access-date=April 19, 2019|work=The New York Times|date=October 9, 2017}}

In 2021, Cathy Curtis published a biography of Hardwick, A Splendid Intelligence: The Life of Elizabeth Hardwick.{{cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/11/22/the-hard-choices-of-elizabeth-hardwick-cathy-curtis-biography-a-splendid-intelligence|title=The Hard Choices of Elizabeth Hardwick|author=Maggie Doherty|date=November 15, 2021|magazine=The New Yorker|access-date=October 1, 2022}}{{cite book|last=Curtis|first=Cathy|title=A Splendid Intelligence: The Life of Elizabeth Hardwick|type=hardcover|publisher=W. W. Norton|year=2021|isbn=978-1324005520}}

Personal life

From July 28, 1949, until their eventual divorce in 1972, Hardwick was married to Robert Lowell, the Pulitzer Prize‐winning poet from the prominent Boston Brahmin family. Despite the difficulties of their often tumultuous union,{{Cite web |title=Scenes from a Marriage |url=https://www.bookforum.com/print/2605/the-correspondence-behind-robert-lowell-s-controversial-book-the-dolphin-23853 |access-date=2023-01-11 |website=www.bookforum.com |language=en-US}} Hardwick maintained that Lowell was the best thing that had ever happened to her.{{Cite web |author=Guardian Staff |date=2007-12-05 |title=Linda Hall remembers Elizabeth Hardwick, author, New York Review of Books founder and Barnard lecturer |url=http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/dec/05/booksobituaries.usa |access-date=2023-01-11 |website=the Guardian |language=en}} Their daughter was Harriet Lowell.

Hardwick died in a Manhattan hospital on December 2, 2007, aged 91.{{cite news|last=Walcott|first=Derek|author-link=Derek Walcott|title=Elizabeth Hardwick (1916–2007)|url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2008/01/17/elizabeth-hardwick-19162007/|access-date=October 1, 2022|work=The New York Review of Books|date=January 17, 2008}}

Published works

=Fiction=

{{cite book |title=The Ghostly Lover |date=1945 |publisher=Harcourt, Brace & Company |location=New York |isbn=0912946962}}
{{cite book |title=The Simple Truth |date=1955 |publisher=Harcourt, Brace & Company |location=New York |isbn=0912946989}}
{{cite book |title=Sleepless Nights|title-link=Sleepless Nights (novel) |date=1979 |publisher=Random house |location=New York |isbn=0394505271}}
{{cite book |title=The New York Stories of Elizabeth Hardwick |date=2010 |publisher=New York Review Books |location=New York |isbn=978-1590172872}} (Posthumous; edited by Darryl Pinckney)

=Nonfiction=

{{cite book |title=A View of My Own: Essays in Literature and Society |date=1962 |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Cudahy |location=New York |isbn=0912946911}}
{{cite book |title=Seduction and Betrayal: Women and Literature |date=1974 |publisher=Random house |location=New York |isbn=039449069X}}
{{cite book |title=Bartleby in Manhattan and Other Essays |date=1983 |publisher=Random House |location=New York |isbn=0394528808}}
{{cite book |title=Sight-Readings: American Fictions |date=1998 |publisher=Random house |location=New York |isbn=0375501274}}
{{cite book |title=Herman Melville |date=2000 |publisher=Viking Adult |location=New York |isbn=0670891584}} (Published as part of the Penguin Lives Series)
{{cite book |title=The Collected Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick |date=2017 |publisher=New York Review Books |location=New York |isbn=978-1681371542}} (Posthumous; edited by Darryl Pinckney)
{{cite book |title=The Uncollected Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick |date=2022 |publisher=New York Review Books |location=New York |isbn=978-1681376233}} (Posthumous; edited by Alex Andriesse)

References

External links

[http://research.hrc.utexas.edu:8080/hrcxtf/view?docId=ead/00202.xml&query=elizabeth%20hardwick&query-join=and Elizabeth Hardwick Collection] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110522154444/http://research.hrc.utexas.edu:8080/hrcxtf/view?docId=ead/00202.xml&query=elizabeth%20hardwick&query-join=and |date=May 22, 2011 }} at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
[http://exploreuk.uky.edu/catalog/xt7z08635x76/guide Guide to the Elizabeth Hardwick manuscript, 1955] housed at the University of Kentucky Libraries Special Collections Research Center.

Category:1916 births

Category:2007 deaths

Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers

Category:20th-century American novelists

Category:20th-century American short story writers

Category:20th-century American women writers

Category:American literary critics

Category:American women literary critics

Category:American women non-fiction writers

Category:American women novelists

Category:American women short story writers

Category:Columbia University faculty