William Maxwell - Collected Works and Letters (17 books)

* William Maxwell - Collected Works and Letters (17 books)

WILLIAM MAXWELL (1908–2000) was a distinguished American novelist, short story writer, and essayist whose spare, evocative prose often centered on childhood loss, family dynamics, and quiet Midwest life. Serving as a fiction editor at The New Yorker for 40 years (1936–1975), he mentored giants such as John Updike and Eudora Welty while building his own award-winning body of work. Maxwell’s writing is celebrated for its emotional depth, precise style, and ability to capture the profound nuances of ordinary experience.

His early fiction established his reputation for exploring the domestic intricacies of the American Midwest. After his debut with the lighthearted BRIGHT CENTER OF HEAVEN (1934}, Maxwell achieved critical success with THEY CAME LIKE SWALLOWS (1937}, a poignant novella told from three perspectives centered on a family’s loss during the 1918 influenza epidemic. This was followed by THE FOLDED LEAF (1945), a sensitive examination of a complex friendship between two boys that remains one of the most respected coming-of-age novels of the mid-century.

Later in his career, Maxwell produced some of his most admired work. THE CHÂTEAU (1961) drew on a postwar trip to France. His final novel, SO LONG, SEE YOU TOMORROW (1980), is widely considered his masterpiece. Blending memoiristic reflection with a fictionalized account of a real-life murder, it won the National Book Award and serves as a definitive exploration of how memory shapes our understanding of the past. His short fiction, which often appeared in The New Yorker, was compiled in volumes including THE OLD MAN AT THE RAILROAD CROSSING AND OTHER TALES (1966), OVER BY THE RIVER, AND OTHER STORIES (1977), and the comprehensive ALL THE DAYS AND NIGHTS: THE COLLECTED STORIES (1995).

Beyond fiction, Maxwell made significant contributions to memoir, non-fiction, and children's literature. ANCESTORS (1971) is a deeply researched, lyrical autobiographical family history, while THE OUTERMOST DREAM (1989) collects his incisive essays and literary reviews focusing on the personal lives of writers and historical figures by examining their diaries, memoirs, and correspondence. He also authored the children’s book THE HEAVENLY TENANTS (1946). His body of work serves as a bridge between the classic realism of the early 20th century and a more modern, introspective sensibility. He remains a vital figure for anyone interested in the art of the sentence and a quiet, cadenced Midwestern voice that John Updike called one of the wisest and kindest in American fiction.


The following books are in ePUB and/or PDF format as indicated:

== NOVELS ==

* Bright Center of Heaven [1934] – included in Early Novels and Stories, below
* The Château (Vintage, 2012) – ePUB
* The Folded Leaf (Vintage, 2009) – ePUB
* So Long, See You Tomorrow (Vintage, 2011) – ePUB
* They Came Like Swallows (Vintage, 2009) – ePUB
* Time Will Darken It (Vintage, 2009) – ePUB

== SHORT FICTION ==

* All the Days and Nights: The Collected Stories (Vintage, 2013) – ePUB

== OMNIBUS EDITIONS ==

* Early Novels and Stories [ed. Carduff] (Library of America #179, 2008) – PDF^
* Later Novels and Stories [ed. Carduff] (Library of America #184, 2008) – PDF^

== NON-FICTION ==

* Ancestors: A Family History (Vintage, 2010) – ePUB
* Conversations with William Maxwell [ed. Burkhardt] (Mississippi, 2012) – ePUB / PDF
* The Outermost Dream: Essays and Reviews (Knopf, 1989) – PDF^
* The Writer as Illusionist: Uncollected and Unpublished Work [ed. Wilkinson] (Godine, 2024) – ePUB

== LETTERS ==

* The Element of Lavishness [ed. Steinman] (Counterpoint, 2001) – PDF^
* The Happiness of Getting It Down Right [ed. Steinman] (Knopf, 1996) – PDF^
* What There Is to Say We Have Said [ed. Marrs] (HMH, 2011) – ePUB

== CHILDREN'S BOOK ==

* The Heavenly Tenants (Dover, 2017) – ePUB

== EDITOR ==

* Letters of Sylvia Townsend Warner (Chatto & Windus, 1982) – ePUB

PDF^ courtesy of Mohamed5438


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