1. "Allow Me to Introduce You" -- 2. "Hidden in Plain View": An Overview of Her Life and Career; Biographical Account; Critical Reception; The Dawn Powell Revivals -- 3. "Every Artist Writes His Own Autobiography": The Diaries, Letters, Short Stories, and Criticism; The Diaries of Dawn Powell, 1931/1965; Selected Letters of Dawn Powell, 1913/1965; Short Stories, Essays, and Reviews; Powell on Satire -- 4. "Mighty Things from Small Beginnings Grow": The Early New York Novels, 1925/38; Whither, 1925; Turn, Magic Wheel, 1936; The Happy Island, 1938 -- 5. "An Affecting Self-Portrait of the Artist in Middle Age": The Middle New York Novels, 1940/48; Angels on Toast, 1940; A Time to Be Born, 1942; The Locusts Have No King, 1948 -- 6. "Either That Wallpaper Goes, or I Do": The Late New York Novels, 1954/62; The Wicked Pavilion, 1954; The Golden Spur, 1962 -- 7. "Turn, Magic Wheel": The Changing Fortunes of Dawn Powell.
Summary:
"Dawn Powell was a gifted satirist who moved in the same circles as Dorothy Parker, Ernest Hemingway, renowned editor Maxwell Perkins, and other midcentury New York luminaries. Her many novels are typically divided into two groups: those dealing with her native Ohio and those set in New York. "From the moment she left behind her harsh upbringing in Mount Gilead, Ohio, and arrived in Manhattan, in 1918, she dove into city life with an outlander's anthropological zeal," reads a recent New Yorker piece about Powell, and it is those New York novels that built her reputation for scouring wit and social observation. In this critical biography and study of the New York novels, Patricia Palermo reminds us how Powell earned a place in the national literary establishment and East Coast social scene. Though Powell's prolific output has been out of print for most of the past few decades, a revival is under way: the Library of America, touting her as a "rediscovered American comic genius," released her collected novels, and in 2015 she was posthumously inducted into the New York State Writer's Hall of Fame. Engaging and erudite, The Message of the City fills a major gap in in the story of a long-overlooked literary great. Palermo places Powell in cultural and historical context and, drawing on her diaries, reveals the real-life inspirations for some of her most delicious satire"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.