Carl Rollyson

William Faulkner emerged from the ravaged South - half backwoods, half defeated empire - transforming his corner of Mississippi into the fictional Yoknapatawpha County and bestowing on the world some of the most revolutionary and enduring literature of the 20th century. The personal story behind...

Though numerous biographies have been published on William Faulkner, readers are often presented conflicting interpretations of his life and work. Faulkner’s view of himself and his own family was mercurial, and it is widely acknowledged that Faulkner was an unreliable narrator of his own life.

Some critics rank biographers just above serial murderers. The author of this book, a self-described member of the Samuel Johnson school, doesn't share this view. An account of a life, he believes, should adhere to the truth as the biographer sees it, not to the sentiments of others. This memoir...

William Faulkner has been the topic of numerous biographies, papers, and international attention. Yet there are no collected resources providing a comprehensive scope of Faulkner’s life and work before now. William Faulkner Day by Day provides unique insight into the daily life of one of...

A new, vivid account of the final months of the esteemed writer’s life In her last days, Sylvia Plath struggled to break out from the control of the towering figure of her husband Ted Hughes. In the antique mythology of his retinue, she had become the gorgon threatening to bring down the House...

By the end of The Life of William Faulkner, Volume 1, the young Faulkner had gone from an unpromising, self-mythologizing bohemian to the author of some of the most innovative and enduring literature of the century, including The Sound and the Fury and Light in August. The second and concluding...

In Marilyn Monroe Day by Day: A Timeline of People, Places, and Events, Carl Rollyson provides a documentary approach to the life and legend of this singular personality....

Rollyson shrewdly probes Faulkner's dynamic and changing uses of the past. Also taking advantage of his own work as a biographer, Rollyson has updated, revised, and expanded his original book - extending his dialogue with recent Faulkner critics....

This first biography of Susan Sontag (1933-2004) is now fully revised and updated, providing an even more intimate portrayal of the influential writer’s life and career. The authors base this revision on Sontag’s newly released private correspondence, including emails, and the letters and...

With the publication of Susan Sontag's diaries, the development of her career can now be evaluated in a more genetic sense, so that the origins of her ideas and plans for publication are made plain in the context of her role as a public intellectual who is increasingly aware of her impact on her...

The first book to survey the broad range of Ms. Sontag's work, including full discussions of her fiction. One can ask for no better guidebook...

Biography as a literary genre is largely the product of the 18th century and of one seminal work, James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)....

This volume represents more than 25 years of writing about female icons and biography. Rollyson provides the bits and pieces that resulted not only in his biography of Marilyn Monroe but also in much of the work he has subsequently done on Lillian Hellman, Martha Gellhorn, Rebecca West, Susan...

Carl Rollyson's Biography: A User's Guide is an informative and entertaining text for those interested in biography. No aspect of the genre, from A to Z, goes uncovered....

Walter Brennan (1894-1974) was one of the greatest character actors in Hollywood history. He won three Academy Awards and became a national icon starring as Grandpa in The Real McCoys. He appeared in over 200 motion pictures and became the subject of a Norman Rockwell painting, which celebrated...

Most book reviewers know very little about the history or the art of biography. Indeed, if there is any art in biography, it is the rare reviewer that acknowledges it or knows how to discuss it....

Rebecca West is one of the great personalities and writers of the modern age, and one that we are just beginning to comprehend....

Rollyson proposes a number of apologias for biography, including the thought that in the right hands the literary biography is a continuation of the writer's work and life....

Too many biographers, Rollyson believes, evince no interest in the biographical tradition. They're concerned only with possession of their subjects....

He provides entertaining and informative accounts of her feud with Mary McCarthy, and her many love affairs and surprising friendships....