Wallace Stegner, winner of the 1972 Pulitzer Prize, was the author of 13 novels and five collections of short stories, as well as the founder of Stanford University's creative writing program. This collection of a lifetime of Stegner’s letters provides a long-awaited look into the life and mind of one of our most important writers. Edited by his son Page, Stegner’s expansive correspondence shows him not only as a lauded educator and author but also as a man who never stopped learning, never stopped questioning and pushing deeper into the foundation of who he was and where he was from.
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From Publishers Weekly
Throughout his life, Wallace Stegner (1909–1993)—a novelist, historian and environmental activist—maintained an active correspondence with family members, writers, critics, editors, biographers and conservationists. His son, Page (Grand Canyon: The Great Abyss), has assembled a representative selection of letters and arranged them by theme: origins, reflections on his works, the literary life, his tenure at Stanford University (where he started the creative writing program in 1945) and his dedication to wilderness conservation. Whether responding to questions from his biographers, engaging in literary controversy, chiding a grandson about his faulty spelling and grammar or, in 1982, turning down a medal from the National Endowment for the Arts (which he felt was subject to too many political controls), Stegner is always attentive to the niceties of the writing craft, gracious and generous in his assessment of the achievements of others. The letters reveal much about his personal life and innermost thoughts, thus acting as a substitute for the autobiography he never wrote. Particularly illuminating are passages that give insight into the background of some of his books, including Angel of Repose, which won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1972, and The Uneasy Chair, his biography of historian and conservationist Bernard De Voto. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
"[A] collection of letters that are thoughtful, interesting, and peppered with delightful imagery that only a true writer would craft for his audience of one."
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5.0 out of 5 stars
A Dear Friend,
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This review is from: The Selected Letters of Wallace Stegner (Paperback)
Behind the book's title page is a Stegner quote, "What does more to stay us and keep our backbones stiff while the world reels than a sense that we are linked with someone who listens and understands and so in some way completes us?" What a joy to hold and read the nearly 400 pages of Stegner's letters. Thank you Wally (and thank you Page) for this gift from a dear friend.
3 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Elitist Bore,
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This review is from: The Selected Letters of Wallace Stegner (Hardcover)
I used to like Wallace Stegner's persona and writings - especially the historical "Beyond the 100th Meridian." I guess I still like that book, and others like "Shooting Star." However, about a third of the way through "Selected Letters" I began to ask myself why I cared about this man. I am a professor and assigned my class his "Wilderness Letter" to read, hoping it would awake their environmental consciences. But I was taken aback how many of the students thought he came across as an elitist, out-of-touch snob. Perhaps it was a generational thing. But then I thought about it and while reading "Selected Letters" that perception seemed to hit home. I think I need to Read Elizabeth Cook-Lynn's "Why I Can't Read Wallace Stegner and Other Essays."
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Wallace Stegner, New York, Salt Lake, Angle of Repose, Carl Brandt, Random House, The Uneasy Chair, Ansel Adams, John Daniel, Malcolm Cowley, Wendell Berry, Jackson Benson, Nancy Colberg, Richard Scowcroft, American West, Fawn Brodie, Houghton Mifflin, The Big Rock Candy Mountain, Shooting Star, Page Stegner, Sara Barnard, Sam Vaughan, Robert Frost, Mary Page, Iowa City Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
wolf willow, good camper Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Wallace Stegner, New York, Salt Lake, Angle of Repose, Carl Brandt, Random House, The Uneasy Chair, Ansel Adams, John Daniel, Malcolm Cowley, Wendell Berry, Jackson Benson, Nancy Colberg, Richard Scowcroft, American West, Fawn Brodie, Houghton Mifflin, The Big Rock Candy Mountain, Shooting Star, Page Stegner, Sara Barnard, Sam Vaughan, Robert Frost, Mary Page, Iowa City Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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