The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal: Book summary and reviews of The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal by Gore Vidal

The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal Summary

Gore Vidal—novelist, playwright, critic, screenwriter, memoirist, indefatigable political commentator, and controversialist—is America's premier man of letters. No other living writer brings more sparkling wit, vast learning, indelible personality, and provocative mirth to the job of writing an essay. This long-needed volume comprises some twenty-four of his forays into criticism, reviewing, political commentary, memoir, portraiture, and, occasionally, unfettered score settling. Among them are such classics as "The Top Ten Best-Sellers," “Dawn Powell: The American Writer,” “Theodore Roosevelt: An American Sissy," "Pornography," and "The Second American Revolution.” Edited and introduced by Gore Vidal's literary executor, Jay Parini, it will stand as one of the most enjoyable and durable works from the hand and mind of this vastly accomplished and entertaining immortal of American literature.

The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal Reviews

"Starred Review. [A]n entry point into this literary giant's work for a new generation of readers, offering some of Vidal's most famous and entertaining essays from the past 50-odd years." - Publishers Weekly.

"Starred Review. A splendid, savvy distillation of the best from the veteran novelist and essayist...nearly six decades' worth of eloquent bile,dispensed with unmatched craft and wit." - Kirkus Reviews.

"Regardless of what one thinks of Vidal, what Vidal thinks is never in doubt in these 24 essays, divided here into two groups: literary criticism and historical or cultural commentary. His writing is clear, sharp, and disciplined ... " - Library Journal.

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Gore Vidal Author Biography

During Gore Vidal's six decade career he has written many novels, essays, television plays and film scripts.  He was born Eugene Luther Gore Vidal in 1925 at the United States Military Academy at West Point where his father, Gene Vidal, was an aeronautics instructor.  As a teenager he adopted the first name of Gore.  His parents divorced in 1935, and his mother married Hugh Auchincloss, hence Gore Vidal acquired a stepfather in common with Jacqueline Kennedy.  He spent much of his childhood in Washington with his blind grandfather, Senator Thomas Pryor Gore of Oklahoma from whom Vidal learned the ins and outs of political life.  After graduating from Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, where he was considered a mediocre student, he joined...

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