William Maxwell

She was an only child. According to William Maxwell (an editor of her letters, to whom she dictated notes in 1966), her birth was marked by what amounted to portents. Her mother went into labour...

STW 's father was an atheist whose unconventional views undoubtedly inspired her own rejection of traditional thought. Her mother similarly showed little concern for religion, regarding most biblical characters as frauds, even though she taught...

Although she lived most of her life out of the social swing, EW maintained a web of close friendships by letters and visits. With Diarmuid Russell , who became her literary agent in 1940, she...

On the subject of Gallant's first The New Yorker story, Madeline's Birthday, Mordecai Richler —signing his name as Mordy—wrote to Douglas M. Gibson to say i saw mavis's story in the new yorker. i'm...

This acceptance marked the beginning of a long and fruitful publishing history with the magazine, with 116 of her stories appearing in it in the years until 1995. However, the relationship had a more tumultuous...

Despite this promising request, she received no news regarding the subsequent stories she submitted from Europe. While living in poverty in Madrid, MG happened across one of her recently submitted stories, One Morning in...

Although STW had believed that the New Yorker would never print her work, she nonetheless submitted the story at the persistent urging of her friend Jean Untermeyer . In the end Untermeyer made a bet...

Before she wrote these particular stories, STW was suffering from a period of insecurity and self-criticism, feeling that she had perhaps grown stale and that her characters were too facile. She changed the ending of...

US sales for stories soon followed. Harper's Bazaar published one extracted from A View from the Harbour in July 1947, and a year later, in September 1948, I Live in a World of Make-Beiieve (which...

Regardless of this opposition, MG regarded Maxwell as a strong ally until he left the magazine in 1975, after which she was often at odds with the newer, younger editorial team. Her last story for...

Her frequent correspondents included musician Paul Nordoff , American artist and illustrator George Plank , and writers Leonard Bacon , Anne Parrish , William Maxwell , Nancy Cunard , and Alyse Gregory .

Letters: Sylvia Townsend Warner, edited by William Maxwell , appeared five years after her death.