Prose

by Bishop, Elizabeth; Schwartz, Lloyd

• ISBN13: 9780374532734
• ISBN10: 0374532737
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-02-01
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Summary

Elizabeth Bishop's prose is not nearly as well known as her poetry, but she was a dazzling and compelling prose writer too, as the publication of her letters has shown. Her stories are often on the borderline of memoir, and vice versa. From her college days, she could find the most astonishing yet thoroughly apt metaphors to illuminate her ideas. This volume--edited by the poet, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic, and Bishop scholar Lloyd Schwartz--includes virtually all her published shorter prose pieces and a number of prose works not published until after her death. Here are her famous as well as her lesser-known stories, crucial memoirs, literary and travel essays, book reviews, and--for the first time--her original draft ofBrazil, the Time/Life volume she repudiated in its published version, and the complete extant correspondence between Bishop and the poet Anne Stevenson, the author of the first book-length volume devoted to Bishop.

Author Biography

Elizabeth Bishop was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1911 and graduated from Vassar College in 1934. She traveled widely as an adult, living in Paris, Mexico, New York, Florida, and, for more than a decade, Brazil, before returning to the United States. Her work was immediately prized for its distinctive clarity, precision, and depth, and she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award, among others. Over time she has come to be acknowledged as one of America's essential poets. She died in Boston in 1979.

Table of Contents

Editor's Note	p. vii
Stories and Memoirs
The Baptism	p. 3
The Sea and Its Shore	p. 11
In Prison	p. 18
Gregorio Valdes, 1879-1939	p. 26
Mercedes Hospital	p. 32
The Farmer's Children	p. 39
The Housekeeper	p. 47
Gwendolyn	p. 52
In the Village	p. 62
Primer Class	p. 79
The Country Mouse	p. 86
The U.S.A. School of Writing	p. 100
A Trip to Vigia	p. 110
Efforts of Affection: A Memoir of Marianne Moore	p. 117
To the Botequim & Back	p. 141
Memories of Uncle Neddy	p. 146
Brazil	p. 163
Essays, Reviews, and Tributes
As We Like It: Miss Moore and the Delight of Imitation	p. 253
Review of Annie Allen by Gwendolyn Brooks	p. 260
Review of XAIPE: 71 Poems by E. E. Cummings	p. 261
Love from Emily	p. 262
Review of The Riddle of Emily Dickinson	p. 264
What the Young Man Said to the Psalmist	p. 266
The Manipulation of Mirrors	p. 268
Introduction to The Diary of "Helena Morley"	p. 273
A New Capital, Aldous Huxley, and Some Indians	p. 292
"I Was But Just Awake"	p. 322
Robert Lowell's Life Studies	p. 326
"Writing poetry is an unnatural act..."	p. 327
Some Notes on Robert Lowell	p. 332
A Sentimental Tribute	p. 336
Flannery O'Connor: 1925-1964	p. 340
On the Railroad Named Delight	p. 342
Gallery Note for Wesley Wehr	p. 352
An Inadequate Tribute	p. 354
Introduction to An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Brazilian Poetry	p. 355
A Brief Reminiscence and a Brief Tribute	p. 363
Translations
From The Diary of "Helena Morley"	p. 369
Stories by Clarice Lispector The Smallest Woman in the World	p. 380
A Hen	p. 385
Marmosets	p. 387
Correspondence with Anne Stevenson, 1963-1965	p. 389
Appendix: Early Prose
On Being Alone	p. 451
A Mouse and Mice	p. 453
The Thumb	p. 455
Then Came the Poor	p. 459
From "Time's Andromedas"	p. 466
Gerard Manley Hopkins: Notes on Timing in His Poetry	p. 468
The Last Animal	p. 475
Dimensions for a Novel	p. 480
Notes on the Texts	p. 491
Index	p. 495
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