 | The Shape of Hawthorne''s Career This gracefully written book considers all of Nathaniel Hawthorne's works, from Fanshawe through the unfinished romances of his last years, and establishes the pattern of his literary development. Ms. Baym brings the crucial facts of Hawthorne's career into clear focus, and places the individual works within the total picture. Disputing some enduring critical pieties, she finds in Hawthorne a writer who experimented with a series of literary poses through which he tried both to discover himself and to please his audience. He realized late, she says, the paradox that the more he departed from conventional modes, the more "popular" his writing became. By looking discerningly at all of Hawthorne's work as it unfolded, Ms. Baym produces compelling new insights into a major American writer and adds appreciably to our understanding of him. Nina Baym was born Nina Zippin in Princeton, New Jersey on June 14, 1936. She received a bachelor's degree from Cornell University, a master's degree from Radcliffe College, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. She joined the faculty of the University of Illinois-Champaign in 1963 and taught English there until her retirement in 2004. She wrote several books including Shape of Hawthorne's Career; The Scarlet Letter: A Reading; Woman's Fiction: A Guide to Novels by and About Women in America, 1820-1870; Women Writers of the American West, 1832-1927; and Feminism and American Literary History. She also served as general editor of several editions of The Norton Anthology of American Literature. She died from complications of dementia on June 15, 2018 at the age of 82. (Bowker Author Biography) |
