{"product_id":"jean-stafford-complete-novels-loa-324-isbn-9781598536447","title":"Jean Stafford: Complete Novels (LOA #324)","description":"\u003cb\u003eFor the first time in a deluxe hardcover edition, three eerily powerful novels by a midcentury master of social satire and \u003cb\u003epsychological portraiture\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJean Stafford (1915-1979) made a bold entrance onto the American literary scene in 1944 when her first novel, \u003ci\u003eBoston Adventure\u003c\/i\u003e became a surprise best seller. She followed up this initial success with two more acclaimed novels, \u003ci\u003eThe Mountain Lion\u003c\/i\u003e (1944) and \u003ci\u003eThe Catherine Wheel\u003c\/i\u003e (1952), and became a prolific writer of short stories for \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker \u003c\/i\u003eand other prominent magazines. (Her \u003ci\u003eCollected Stories \u003c\/i\u003ewon the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1970.) In later years serious health problems made it increasingly difficult for her to write, and after her death she became a somewhat overlooked figure in 20th-century American literature. \u003ci\u003eComplete Novels\u003c\/i\u003e allows readers to rediscover \"a figure of genuine consequence in American literature\" (Jonathan Yardley, \u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e) at the height of her powers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBoston Adventure\u003c\/i\u003e follows Sonia Marburg, the daughter of immigrant parents, as she seeks to escape her impoverished childhood by becoming the secretary-companion of the socially prominent Lucy Pride. The novel won praise for its perceptive satire of upper-class Boston society, while Stafford's portrayal of the inner life of her protagonist drew comparisons to Henry James and Marcel Proust. In \u003ci\u003eThe Mountain Lion\u003c\/i\u003e Stafford drew on her childhood memories of southern California and Colorado to tell the story of Molly Fawcett, her brother Ralph, and their shared journey through the treacherous passage from childhood into adolescence. Set in a country house in Maine, \u003ci\u003eThe Catherine Wheel\u003c\/i\u003e traces the tragic relationship between a lonely boy and his beloved aunt during a summer in which each of them secretly seeks revenge against the people who have betrayed them.“A revelation. . . . \u003ci\u003eBoston Adventure\u003c\/i\u003e is surely one of the most haunting depictions of female isolation in fiction, rivaling in its unrelenting sense of imprisonment Charlotte Brontë’s Villette. . . . [\u003ci\u003eThe Catherine Wheel\u003c\/i\u003e] vividly evokes the despair of an adolescent engulfed by loneliness. . . . \u003ci\u003eThe Mountain Lion \u003c\/i\u003eis rightly hailed as Stafford’s greatest novel, . . . a grim fable, of sorts, about the pressure to leave certain childish things and people behind in order to achieve adulthood.” \u003cb\u003e–Maureen Corrigan, \u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e“\u003c\/b\u003eThere is a new opportunity to ask why work of such originality could ever be forgotten … Forty years after her death, her sentences still gleam like knives.” \u003cb\u003e—Parul Sehgal, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eJean Stafford\u003c\/b\u003e (1915-1979) grew up in southern California and Colorado. After graduating from the University of Colorado in 1936, she studied in Heidelberg for a year, then moved to the Northeast and began to write. Stafford would publish three novels, \u003ci\u003eBoston Adventure\u003c\/i\u003e (1944), \u003ci\u003eThe Mountain Lion\u003c\/i\u003e (1947), \u003ci\u003eThe Catherine Wheel\u003c\/i\u003e (1952), more than forty short stories (\u003ci\u003eThe Collected Stories of Jean Stafford\u003c\/i\u003e won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1970), and \u003ci\u003eA Mother in History\u003c\/i\u003e (1966), a journalistic portrait of Marguerite Oswald, mother of Lee Harvey Oswald.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eKathryn Davis\u003c\/b\u003e is the Hurst Writer in Residence at Washington University and the author of eight novels, including \u003ci\u003eLabrador\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Walking Tour\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eDuplex\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Silk Road\u003c\/i\u003e. She has received the Katherine Anne Porter Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction.","brand":"Library of America","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46299964539109,"sku":"NP9781598536447","price":40.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781598536447.jpg?v=1742918116","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/jean-stafford-complete-novels-loa-324-isbn-9781598536447","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}