William Keepers Maxwell, Jr.

William Keepers Maxwell
Born (1908-08-16)August 16, 1908
Lincoln, Illinois, United States
Died July 31, 2000(2000-07-31) (aged 91)
New York City, New York
Occupation Editor, novelist, short story writer
Nationality American
Alma mater University of Illinois, Harvard University
Genre Domestic realism

William Keepers Maxwell, Jr. (August 16, 1908 – July 31, 2000) was an American editor, novelist, short story writer, essayist, children's author, and memoirist. He served as a fiction editor at The New Yorker from 1936 to 1975. An editor devoted to his writers, Maxwell became a legendary mentor and confidant to many of the most prominent authors of his day. Although best known as an editor, Maxwell was a highly respected and award winning novelist and short story writer. His stature as a celebrated author has grown in the years following his death.

Early life

Maxwell was born in Lincoln, Illinois on August 16, 1908. His parents were William Keepers Maxwell and Eva Blossom Blinn Maxwell. During the 1918 flu epidemic, the 10-year-old Maxwell became ill and survived, but his mother died. After his mother's death he was sent to live with an aunt and uncle in Bloomington, Illinois. Upon his father's remarriage, young Maxwell joined him in Chicago. He attended Senn High School. After graduating from the University of Illinois, Maxwell earned a master's degree at Harvard University.[1]

Career

Maxwell was best known for being a fiction editor of The New Yorker magazine for forty years (1936-1975), where he worked with writers such as Vladimir Nabokov, John Updike, J.D. Salinger, John Cheever, Mavis Gallant, Frank O'Connor, Larry Woiwode, Maeve Brennan, John O'Hara, Eudora Welty, Shirley Hazzard, and Isaac Bashevis Singer. As an editor Welty wrote of him: "For fiction writers, he was the headquarters."[2] He also wrote six highly acclaimed novels, a number of short stories and essays, children's stories, and a memoir, Ancestors (1972). His award-winning fiction, which is increasingly seen as some of the most important of the 20th Century, has recurring themes of childhood, family, loss and lives changed quietly and irreparably. Much of his work is autobiographical, particularly concerning the loss of his mother when he was 10 years old growing up in the rural Midwest of America. After the flu epidemic, young Maxwell had to move away from the house where he lived at the time, which he referred to as the "Wunderkammer" or "Chamber of Wonders". He wrote of his loss "It happened too suddenly, with no warning, and we none of us could believe it or bear it... the beautiful, imaginative, protected world of my childhood swept away."

Since his death in 2000 several works of biography have appeared, including A William Maxwell Portrait: Memories and Appreciations (W. W. Norton & Co., 2004), My Mentor: A Young Man's Friendship with William Maxwell by Alec Wilkinson (Houghton-Mifflin, 2002), and William Maxwell: A Literary Life by Barbara Burkhardt (University of Illinois Press, 2005). In 2008 the Library of America published the first of two collections of works by William Maxwell, Early Novels and Stories, edited by Christopher Carduff. His collected edition of William Maxwell's fiction, published to mark the writer's centenary, was completed by a second volume, Later Novels and Stories in the fall of 2008.

Personal life

William Maxwell was married to the former Emily Gilman Noyes of Portland, Oregon. Emily Maxwell was an accomplished painter, winning the Medal of Honor in 1986 from the National Association of Women Artists. She also reviewed children's books for The New Yorker.[3] The couple were married for fifty-five years, with William's death following his wife's only eight days later.[4] They had two daughters, Katherine and Emily. William Maxwell died on July 31, 2000 in New York City. The epitaph marking his memorial gravestone in Oregon reads, The Work is the Message.[5]

Works

Novels

Short-story collections

Non-fiction

Children's books

Collections

Awards and honors

Notes

  1. 1 2 So Long won the 1982 award for paperback Fiction.
    From 1980 to 1983 in National Book Awards history there were dual hardcover and paperback awards in most categories. Most of the paperback award-winners were reprints, including this one.

References

  1. ↑ William Maxwell, 91, Author and Legendary Editor, Dies New York Times, Retrieved March 23, 2013
  2. ↑ Remembering William Maxwell, bookhaven.stanford.edu, Retrieved March 23, 2012
  3. ↑ Emily Noyes Maxwell, Find A Grave Retrieved March 23, 2013
  4. ↑ William Maxwell and Emily Maxwell, The Guardian, Retrieved March 23, 2013
  5. ↑ William Keepers Maxwell, Find A Grave Retrieved March 23, 2013
  6. ↑ The William Dean Howells Medal Retrieved March 23, 2013
  7. ↑ National Book Foundation. "National Book Awards – 1982". Retrieved March 11, 2012.
  8. ↑ Poses Institute for the Arts, Brandeis Creative Arts Award Retrieved March 23, 2013
  9. ↑ Mark Twain Award, Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature Retrieved March 23, 2013

Further reading

External links

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