...
Show More
Ah, the seducer;
he is a comic figure.
I myself should know.
he is a comic figure.
I myself should know.
Ease Reading-Find Your Next Favorite Book
Seduction and Betrayal
...
Show More
The novelist and essayist Elizabeth Hardwick is one of contemporary America's most brilliant writers, and Seduction and Betrayal, in which she considers the careers of women writers as well as the larger question of the presence of women in literature, is her most passionate and concentrated work of criticism. A gallery of unforgettable portraits--of Virginia Woolf and Zelda Fitzgerald, Dorothy Wordsworth and Jane Carlyle--as well as a provocative reading of such works as Wuthering Heights, Hedda Gabler, and the poems of Sylvia Plath, Seduction and Betrayal is a virtuoso performance, a major writer's reckoning with the relations between men and women, women and writing, writing and life.
224 pages, Paperback
First published May 28,1974
This edition
- Format
-
224 pages, Paperback
- Published
-
August 31, 2001 by NYRB Classics
- ISBN
-
9780940322783
- ASIN
-
0940322781
- Language
-
English
About the author
...
Show More
Elizabeth Hardwick was an American literary critic, novelist, and short story writer.
Hardwick graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1939. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1947. She was the author of three novels: The Ghostly Lover (1945), The Simple Truth (1955), and Sleepless Nights (1979). A collection of her short fiction, The New York Stories of Elizabeth Hardwick, will be published in 2010. She also published four books of criticism: A View of My Own (1962), Seduction and Betrayal (1974), Bartleby in Manhattan (1983), and Sight-Readings (1998). In 1961 she edited The Selected Letters of William James and in 2000 she published a short biography, Herman Melville, in Viking Press's Penguin Lives series..
In 1959, Hardwick published in Harper's, "The Decline of Book Reviewing," a generally harsh and even scathing critique of book reviews published in American periodicals of the time. The 1962 New York City newspaper strike helped inspire Hardwick, Robert Lowell, Jason Epstein, Barbara Epstein, and Robert B. Silvers to establish The New York Review of Books, a publication that became as much a habit for many readers as The New York Times Book Review, which Hardwick had eviscerated in her 1959 essay.
In the '70s and early '80s, Hardwick taught writing seminars at Barnard College and Columbia University's School of the Arts, Writing Division. She gave forthright critiques of student writing and was a mentor to students she considered promising.
From 1949 to 1972 she was married to the poet Robert Lowell; their daughter is Harriet Lowell.
In 2008, The Library of America selected Hardwick's account of the Caryl Chessman murders for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American True Crime writing.
Hardwick graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1939. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1947. She was the author of three novels: The Ghostly Lover (1945), The Simple Truth (1955), and Sleepless Nights (1979). A collection of her short fiction, The New York Stories of Elizabeth Hardwick, will be published in 2010. She also published four books of criticism: A View of My Own (1962), Seduction and Betrayal (1974), Bartleby in Manhattan (1983), and Sight-Readings (1998). In 1961 she edited The Selected Letters of William James and in 2000 she published a short biography, Herman Melville, in Viking Press's Penguin Lives series..
In 1959, Hardwick published in Harper's, "The Decline of Book Reviewing," a generally harsh and even scathing critique of book reviews published in American periodicals of the time. The 1962 New York City newspaper strike helped inspire Hardwick, Robert Lowell, Jason Epstein, Barbara Epstein, and Robert B. Silvers to establish The New York Review of Books, a publication that became as much a habit for many readers as The New York Times Book Review, which Hardwick had eviscerated in her 1959 essay.
In the '70s and early '80s, Hardwick taught writing seminars at Barnard College and Columbia University's School of the Arts, Writing Division. She gave forthright critiques of student writing and was a mentor to students she considered promising.
From 1949 to 1972 she was married to the poet Robert Lowell; their daughter is Harriet Lowell.
In 2008, The Library of America selected Hardwick's account of the Caryl Chessman murders for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American True Crime writing.
Readers also enjoyed
Community Reviews
Rating(3.9 / 5.0, 74 votes)
5 stars
21(28%)
4 stars
26(35%)
3 stars
27(36%)
2 stars
0(0%)
1 stars
0(0%)
74 reviews All reviews
...
Show More
Sharp, analytical, and profoundly absorbing.
...
Show More
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Hardwick is brilliant and moving in her portraits of the amateurs, Jane Carlyle, Dorothy Wordsworth, Zelda Fitzgerald. Her close reading of the life and works of her subjects and her identification of various echoes in her subject matter make for erudite yet humane essays. She is pretty forthright in her views but doesn't come across as scathing. Definite reread.
...
Show More
And what is the point of paraphrasing The Waves, of trying for your own circles of ebb and flow to compete with hers? I was immensely moved by this novel when I read it recently and yet I cannot think of anything to say about it except that it is wonderful. The people are not characters, there is no plot in the usual sense. What can you bring to bear: verisimilitude — to what? You can merely say over and over that it is very good, very beautiful, that when you were reading it you were happy.
...
Show More
This is an odd one, because I'm interested in just about everything Hardwich writes about in this essay-collection. I don't even demand much, in reading about subjects I love and know well, I'm fine with disagreeing with the author, I don't really mind some misktakes, but this book annoyed me so much I twice had to put it aside for several days to allow my irritation to wear off. Some of these essays are beautifully crafted and insightful, others are painful to read, engaging with their subjects only at a superficial level, but what grates even more are the many, many sentences that seem purpose-built to meander into nothingness.
I will be discussing this in the feminist book club I go to soon, and I hope for the sake of everyone I'll have calmed down enough not to be constantly reading out sentences, shouting WHAT DOES IT MEAN? DOES IT MEAN ANYTHING AT ALL?
I will be discussing this in the feminist book club I go to soon, and I hope for the sake of everyone I'll have calmed down enough not to be constantly reading out sentences, shouting WHAT DOES IT MEAN? DOES IT MEAN ANYTHING AT ALL?
...
Show More
Ah! Enjoyed this so much more than of her fiction. Loved the articles written about Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Zelda Fitzgerald and The Brontes.
...
Show More
I couldn’t get into this which is disappointing as I was really excited when I discovered Elizabeth Hardwick on an episode of the Women’s Prize for Fiction podcast. She sounded right up my street. The essays on Dorothy Wordsworth and the Brontes were my favourites, the rest I found a little too rambling and I couldn’t connect with the Ibsen essays whatsoever, having read precisely zero of his plays. I’m still curious to try another of her books though as she is so well respected.
...
Show More
Hardwick is a flinty dame and her prose cuts like a laser. Yowza.
Leave a Review