Look Homeward, Angel Wolfe, Thomas

Thomas Wolfe's classic coming-of-age novel, first published in 1929, is a work of epic grandeur, evoking a time and place with extraordinary lyricism and precision. Set in Altamont, North Carolina, this semi-autobiographical novel tells the story of a restless young man who longs to escape his tumultuous family and his small town existence.

From the Publisher:
The classic first novel from one of America's greatest men of letters

"I don't know yet what I am capable of doing," wrote Thomas Wolfe at the age of twenty-three, "but, by God, I have genius -- I know it too well to blush behind it." Six years later, with the publication of Look Homeward, Angel, Wolfe gave the world proof of his genius, and he would continue to do so throughout his tumultuous life.

Look Homeward, Angel is the coming-of-age story of Eugene Gant, whose restlessness and yearning to experience life to the fullest take him from his rural home in North Carolina to Harvard. Through his rich, ornate prose and meticulous attention to detail, Wolfe evokes the peculiarities of small-town life and the pain and upheaval of leaving home. Heavily autobiographical, Look Homeward, Angel is Wolfe's most turbulent and passionate work, and a brilliant novel of lasting impact.

Annotation:
LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL, Wolfe's first novel, was published on October 18, 1929 only a few days before the great stock market crash. It is the coming-of-age story of Eugene Gant, whose restlessness and yearning to experience life to the fullest take him from his rural home in North Carolina to Harvard. Through his rich, ornate prose and meticulous attention to detail, Wolfe evokes the peculiarities of small-town life, and the pain and upheaval of leaving home. Heavily autobiographical, LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL, is Wolfe's most turbulent and passionate work, and a brilliant novel of lasting impact. In his preface, Wolfe wrote: "Dr. Johnson remarked that a man would run over half a library to make a single book: in the same way, a novelist may turn over half the people in a town to make a single figure in his novel. This is not the whole method but the writer believes it illustrates the whole method in a book that is written from a middle distance and is without rancor or bitter intention."

Author Bio

Thomas Wolfe

Wolfe, one of seven children in a troubled alcoholic family, was the son of a stonecutter--a profession which figures in his first novel, LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL. He received his B.A. in 1920 from the University of North Carolina and an M.A. from Harvard in 1922. He taught briefly at New York University, traveled extensively, and eventually settled down to writing his vast, turbulent novels, most of which were based on his own history as a writer and a man. He was fortunate that his editor at Scribner's was the legendary Maxwell Perkins, who helped him shape LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL into a coherent work of art by cutting (opinions vary) somewhere between 66,000 and 90,000 words. A hard drinker who led a generally chaotic life, Wolfe died at the age of 38 of a tubercular lesion to the brain. On his tombstone are the lines (from LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL): "The last voyage, the longest, the best."

Praise

"[L]ike very true work of the imagination it has deep, strong, sustaining roots in the senses and therefore loves and praises life....The epic of the Gant family is the most powerful piece of fiction from present-day America that I know of." - Hermann Hesse

Product Attributes

Book Format:		Hardcover
Number of Pages:		0528
Publisher:		Scribner Book Company

BloomReach Content

Look Homeward, Angel A Story of the Buried Life (Hardcover)

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