A Thomas Wolfe Bibliography: Suggested Secondary Sources

FEATURED AUTHOR A THOMAS WOLFE BIBLIOGRAPHY: SUGGESTED SECONDARY SOURCES Shawn Holliday Louis D. Rubin, Jr. Thomas Wolfe: The Weather ofHis Youth. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1955. One ofthe first book-length introductions to Wolfe's life andwork, it is a revised version ofRubin's Ph.D. dissertation atJohns Hopkins University, which looked at the form ofWolfe's autobiographical fiction. Elizabeth Nowell. Thomas Wolfe: A Biography. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, i960. Written by his literary agent, this is the first full-length biography of Thomas Wolfe. Although Nowell's inside information makes this book invaluable, it is hurt by her continued reliance on Wolfe's fiction for information. She also leaves out important details due to her protective nature and her concern for possible claims oflibel. Richard S. Kennedy. The Window ofMemory: The Literary Career of Thomas Wolfe. Chapel Hill: University ofNorth Carolina Press, 1962. A critical biography, it is the first to document Wolfe's "rough outline" of his final book and to detail the extent of Edward Aswell's editorial tampering. Excellently written and researched, it remains the standard by which Wolfe criticism is still judged. Aldo Magi and RichardWalser, eds. Thomas WolfeInterviewed, 19291938 . Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985. The editors offer "twenty-five accounts ofThomas Wolfe talking to the press" throughout his career. 44 David Herbert Donald. Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Boston: Little, Brown, 1987. Although some factual errors exist in this biography, it benefits from the temporal distance between the author and his subject. Although considered the most objective of Wolfe's biographies, many feel that Donald never captures the essence ofWolfe's personality. Nonetheless, it won a Pulitzer Prize in 1988. Margaret Mills Harper. The Aristocracy ofArt in Joyce and Wolfe. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990. This comparative study traces the similarities in the two authors' autobiographical fiction, their search for a father and their complex composing processes. Shawn Holliday. Thomas Wolfe and the Politics ofModernism. New York: Peter Lang, 2001. This critical study reestablishes Wolfe's importance to the modernist canon by exploring "the experimental nature of[his] fiction, his troubling association with other writers and artists, his complicated publishing practices, and the late development of his political conscience." The concluding chapter traces Wolfe's influence on such laterwriters as Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, Edward Abbey, Ray Bradbury and Pat Conroy. Robert Taylor Ensign. "Lean Down Your Ear upon the Earth and Listen": Thomas Wolfe's Greener Modernism. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003. In this groundbreaking book, Ensign explores the eco-critical aspects of Wolfe's fiction, especially the "romantic depth and emotional intensity" ofhis characters and their "connection with the natural world." 45 Wolfe'spassport 46 ...