The Voyage That Never Ends Lowry, Malcolm/ Hofmann, Michael (EDT)

A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS ORIGINAL
A portrait in his own words of one of the twentieth-century's most original and tragic writers, The Voyage that Never Ends is the first collection to draw on the whole range of Malcolm Lowry's work above and beyond his masterpiece "Under the Volcano." When Lowry died at the age of 48--in the coroner's words, "of misadventure"--he left a great deal of extraordinary work that had remained uncollected or unpublished in the course of a life driven equally by a passion for writing and addiction to alcohol--stories, novellas, half-finished novels, including significant portions of the long-contemplated epic tale of suffering and redemption that was to follow "Under the Volcano"'s unsparing account of a modern hell. This material, scattered among various volumes, some of them scholarly editions of limited availability and many of them out of print for years, is here drawn on by the British poet and critic Michael Hofmann to present an unequalled picture of Lowry's range and achievement. Including the idyllic story "The Forest Path to the Spring," the brilliantly experimental "Through the Panama," and augmented by Lowry's letters and poems, The Voyage that Never Ends introduces readers to a new Malcolm Lowry, a great and doomed writer who, like Jack Kerouac and Sylvia Plath, staked everything on his art.

Author Bio

Malcolm Lowry

Lowry was born in a small Cheshire town and attended local schools as well as a boarding school in Cambridge. When he was 17, he sailed to the Far East as a cabin boy aboard the S.S. Pyrrhus, but returned in 1929 to begin his university studies at Cambridge, graduating with a B.A. in English. His first novel, ULTRAMARINE, was published in 1933, and in 1934 he married his first wife, Jan Gabrial, in Paris. A year later he was briefly hospitalized in the psychiatric wing of Bellevue Hospital in New York City. In 1936, in Cuernavaca, Mexico, he began writing UNDER THE VOLCANO. While the novel was in progress, his wife left him, and Lowry moved from Mexico to Los Angeles where, in 1939, he met Margerie Bonner (his second wife) and went with her to Vancouver, continuing to toil away at UNDER THE VOLCANO in the squatter's shack they rented. In 1944, the shack burned down, and the Lowrys moved to Niagra-on-the-Lake, Ontario to stay with friends while Lowry completed what was by now the fourth draft of his novel. In 1946, the novel was finally completed, and it was published in 1947. In the remaining years of his life, Lowry alternated between Vancouver, New York, and Europe, continuing to write stories and poems. In 1955 he returned to England, to a small village in Sussez, where he died two years later.

Lowry was born in a small Cheshire town and attended local schools as well as a boarding school in Cambridge. When he was 17, he sailed to the Far East as a cabin boy aboard the S.S. Pyrrhus, but returned in 1929 to begin his university studies at Cambridge, graduating with a B.A. in English. His first novel, ULTRAMARINE, was published in 1933, and in 1934 he married his first wife, Jan Gabrial, in Paris. A year later he was briefly hospitalized in the psychiatric wing of Bellevue Hospital in New York City. In 1936, in Cuernavaca, Mexico, he began writing UNDER THE VOLCANO. While the novel was in progress, his wife left him, and Lowry moved from Mexico to Los Angeles where, in 1939, he met Margerie Bonner (his second wife) and went with her to Vancouver, continuing to toil away at UNDER THE VOLCANO in the squatter's shack they rented. In 1944, the shack burned down, and the Lowrys moved to Niagra-on-the-Lake, Ontario to stay with friends while Lowry completed what was by now the fourth draft of his novel. In 1946, the novel was finally completed, and it was published in 1947 to great acclaim in the US. In the remaining years of his life, Lowry alternated between Vancouver, New York, and Europe, continuing to write stories and poems. In 1955 he was persuaded by his wife to return to England, to a small village in Sussex, where he died two years later under mysterious circumstance after a drinking binge; there is reason to believe that he either committed suicide or was in fact murdered by his wife.

Product Attributes

Book Format:		Hardcover
Number of Pages:		0536
Publisher:		New York Review of Books

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The Voyage That Never Ends Stories, Poems, Drafts, and Letters (Hardcover)

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