Letters to My Father

by Styron, William

• ISBN13: 9780807134009
• ISBN10: 0807134007
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-09-01
• Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr

Summary

"I've finally pretty much decided what to write next-a novel based on Nat Turner's rebellion," twenty-six-year-old William Styron confided to his father in a letter he wrote on May 1, 1952. He would not publish his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Confessions of Nat Turner until 1967, but from 1943 to 1953, he wrote over one hundred letters to his father, detailing his adventures, works in progress, and ruminations on the craft of writing. In all of American literature, no other extended series of such letters-son to father-exists. para; Letters to My Father collects this correspondence for the first time, revealing the early, intimate thoughts of a young man who was to become a literary icon. Beginning with his earliest letters from Davidson College, where he was very much unsure of himself and of his prospects in life, by the last few letters, he had earned a commission in the Marine Corps, survived World War II, published Lie Down in Darkness and the novella The Long March, and won the Prix de Rome; he had also recently married. para; The volume includes a prefatory memoir of the senior Styron by the author's widow, Rose Styron; comprehensive annotations to the correspondence; facsimiles of some of the letters; and a selection of Styron's apprentice fiction from the late 1940s and early 1950s