A Talent for Living

Josephine Pinckney and the Charleston Literary Tradition

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, American, Biography & Memoir, Literary
Cover of the book A Talent for Living by Barbara L. Bellows, LSU Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Barbara L. Bellows ISBN: 9780807157350
Publisher: LSU Press Publication: June 21, 2006
Imprint: LSU Press Language: English
Author: Barbara L. Bellows
ISBN: 9780807157350
Publisher: LSU Press
Publication: June 21, 2006
Imprint: LSU Press
Language: English

Josephine Pinckney (1895--1957) was an award-winning, best-selling author whose work critics frequently compared to that of Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, and Isak Dinesen. Her flair for storytelling and trenchant social commentary found expression in poetry, five novels -- Three O'Clock Dinner was the most successful -- stories, essays, and reviews. Pinckney belonged to a distinguished South Carolina family and often used Charleston as her setting, writing in the tradition of Ellen Glasgow by blending social realism with irony, tragedy, and humor in chronicling the foibles of the South's declining upper class. Barbara L. Bellows has produced the first biography of this very private woman and emotionally complex writer, whose life story is also the history of a place and time -- Charleston in the first half of the twentieth century.
In A Talent for Living, Pinckney's life unfolds like a novel as she struggles to escape aristocratic codes and the ensnaring bonds of southern ladyhood and to embrace modern freedoms. In 1920, with DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen, she founded the Poetry Society of South Carolina, which helped spark the southern literary renaissance. Her home became a center of intellectual activity with visitors such as the poet Amy Lowell, the charismatic presidential candidate Wendell Willkie, and the founding editor of theSaturday Review of Literature Henry Seidel Canby. Sophisticated and cosmopolitan, she absorbed popular contemporary influences, particularly that of Freudian psychology, even as she retained an almost Gothic imagination shaped in her youth by the haunting, tragic beauty of the Low Country and its mystical Gullah culture.
A skilled stylist, Pinckney excelled in creating memorable characters, but she never scripted an individual as engaging or intriguing as herself. Bellows offers a fascinating, exhaustively researched portrait of this onetime cultural icon and her well-concealed personal life.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Josephine Pinckney (1895--1957) was an award-winning, best-selling author whose work critics frequently compared to that of Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, and Isak Dinesen. Her flair for storytelling and trenchant social commentary found expression in poetry, five novels -- Three O'Clock Dinner was the most successful -- stories, essays, and reviews. Pinckney belonged to a distinguished South Carolina family and often used Charleston as her setting, writing in the tradition of Ellen Glasgow by blending social realism with irony, tragedy, and humor in chronicling the foibles of the South's declining upper class. Barbara L. Bellows has produced the first biography of this very private woman and emotionally complex writer, whose life story is also the history of a place and time -- Charleston in the first half of the twentieth century.
In A Talent for Living, Pinckney's life unfolds like a novel as she struggles to escape aristocratic codes and the ensnaring bonds of southern ladyhood and to embrace modern freedoms. In 1920, with DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen, she founded the Poetry Society of South Carolina, which helped spark the southern literary renaissance. Her home became a center of intellectual activity with visitors such as the poet Amy Lowell, the charismatic presidential candidate Wendell Willkie, and the founding editor of theSaturday Review of Literature Henry Seidel Canby. Sophisticated and cosmopolitan, she absorbed popular contemporary influences, particularly that of Freudian psychology, even as she retained an almost Gothic imagination shaped in her youth by the haunting, tragic beauty of the Low Country and its mystical Gullah culture.
A skilled stylist, Pinckney excelled in creating memorable characters, but she never scripted an individual as engaging or intriguing as herself. Bellows offers a fascinating, exhaustively researched portrait of this onetime cultural icon and her well-concealed personal life.

More books from LSU Press

Cover of the book Yoknapatawpha Blues by Barbara L. Bellows
Cover of the book Caribbean Slave Revolts and the British Abolitionist Movement by Barbara L. Bellows
Cover of the book The Cabinetmaker's Window by Barbara L. Bellows
Cover of the book Emmett Till in Literary Memory and Imagination by Barbara L. Bellows
Cover of the book Ministers and Masters by Barbara L. Bellows
Cover of the book The Children of Africa in the Colonies by Barbara L. Bellows
Cover of the book Rough Fugue by Barbara L. Bellows
Cover of the book Irish Catholic Writers and the Invention of the American South by Barbara L. Bellows
Cover of the book Becoming Cajun, Becoming American by Barbara L. Bellows
Cover of the book Put Your Hands In by Barbara L. Bellows
Cover of the book Thomas Dixon Jr. and the Birth of Modern America by Barbara L. Bellows
Cover of the book Walking with Legends by Barbara L. Bellows
Cover of the book Guide to Louisiana Confederate Military Units, 1861–1865 by Barbara L. Bellows
Cover of the book Debugging the Link between Social Theory and Social Insects by Barbara L. Bellows
Cover of the book Black Americans and Organized Labor by Barbara L. Bellows
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy