NYRB Classics: The Uncollected Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick

Alex Andriesse, Saskia Hamilton, Darryl Pinckney, and Merve Emre join us for a panel discussion of "The Uncollected Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick." This program, presented as part of our ongoing virtual event series with our friends at NYRB Classics, took place on Zoom. To purchase the book (and support Community Bookstore): https://www.communitybookstore.net/bo...

About the book:

"The Uncollected Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick" is a companion collection to "The Collected Essays," a book that proved a revelation of what, for many, had been an open secret: that Elizabeth Hardwick was one of the great American literary critics, and an extraordinary stylist in her own right. The thirty-five pieces that Alex Andriesse has gathered here—none previously featured in volumes of Hardwick’s work—make it clear that her powers extended far beyond literary criticism, encompassing a vast range of subjects, from New York City to Faye Dunaway, from Wagner’s Parsifal to Leonardo da Vinci’s inventions, and from the pleasures of summertime to grits soufflé. In these often surprising, always well-wrought essays, we see Hardwick’s passion for people and places, her politics, her thoughts on feminism, and her ability, especially from the 1970s on, to write well about seemingly anything.

Elizabeth Hardwick (1916-2007) was born in Lexington, Kentucky, and educated at the University of Kentucky and Columbia University. A recipient of a Gold Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she is the author of three novels, a biography of Herman Melville, and four collections of essays. She was a co-founder and advisory editor of The New York Review of Books and contributed more than one hundred reviews, articles, reflections, and letters to the magazine. NYRB Classics publishes "Sleepless Nights," a novel, and "Seduction and Betrayal," a study of women in literature, and "The New York Stories of Elizabeth Hardwick."

About our guests:

Alex Andriesse was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1985. His stories, essays, and poems have appeared in Granta, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Prodigal, and Literary Imagination. He has translated several works from Italian and French, including Roberto Bazlen’s "Notes Without a Text and Other Writings" and François-René de Chateaubriand’s "Memoirs from Beyond the Grave, 1768–1800" (an NYRB Classic).

Saskia Hamilton edited "Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell" (with Thomas Travisano), Robert Lowell's "The Dolphin: Two Versions, 1972, 1973, The Letters of Robert Lowell" and "The Dolphin Letters, 1970-1979: Elizabeth Hardwick, Robert Lowell, and Their Circle." Her poetry collections include "Corridor" (2014), "Canal: New and Selected Poems" (2005), "Divide These" (2005), and "As for Dream" (2001). She is a Professor at Barnard, where she currently serves as Vice Provost.

Darryl Pinckney selected "The New York Stories of Elizabeth Hardwick" and "The Collected Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick" for NYRB Classics. A longtime contributor to The New York Review of Books, he is the author of the novels "High Cotton" and "Black Deutschland" and of several works of nonfiction, most recently the collection "Busted in New York and Other Essays." He has collaborated with Robert Wilson on the director’s productions of "The Forest," "Time Rocker," "Orlando," "The Old Woman," "Letter to a Man," "Garrincha: A Street Opera," and "Mary Said What She Said."

Merve Emre is associate professor of English at the University of Oxford. She is the author of "Paraliterary: The Making of Bad Readers in Postwar America," "The Ferrante Letters," and "The Personality Brokers." She is finishing a book titled "Post-Discipline: Literature, Professionalism, and the Crisis of the Humanities" and writing a book called "Love and Other Useless Pursuits." She is a contributing writer at The New Yorker. Her essays and criticism have appeared in The New York Review of Books, Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and the London Review of Books.