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The Uncollected Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick

The Uncollected Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick

Essays on music, art, pop culture, literature, and politics by the renowned essayist and observer of contemporary life, now collected together for the first time.

The Uncollected Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick is a companion collection to The Collected Essays, a book that proved a revelation of what, for many, had been an open secret: that Elizabeth Hardwick was one of the great American literary critics, and an extraordinary stylist in her own right. The thirty-five pieces that Alex Andriesse has gathered here—none previously featured in volumes of Hardwick’s work—make it clear that her powers extended far beyond literary criticism, encompassing a vast range of subjects, from New York City to Faye Dunaway, from Wagner’s Parsifal to Leonardo da Vinci’s inventions, and from the pleasures of summertime to grits soufflé. In these often surprising, always well-wrought essays, we see Hardwick’s passion for people and places, her politics, her thoughts on feminism, and her ability, especially from the 1970s on, to write well about seemingly anything.

Introduction

The Art of the Essay

Places, People, Things

New York City: Crash Course

Lexington, Kentucky

Puritanical Pleasures

The émigré

Balanchine

Faye Dunaway

Knowing Sontag

Katherine Anne

Things

Piety and Politics

Elections

Mr. America

Piety and Politics

The Kennedy Scandals

The Menendez Show

Family Values

Head Over Heels

On Behalf of the Unborn

Feminine Principle

The American Woman as Snow Queen

The Feminine Principle

Women Re Women

The Ties Women Cannot Shake, and Have

Is the “Equal” Woman More Vulnerable?

Suicide and Women

When to Cast Out, Give Up, Let Go

Readings

On Reading the Writings of Women

Reading

Southern Literature: The Cultural Assumptions of Regionalism

Musings

Basic Englishing

Parsifal

The Eternal Heartbreak

The Heart of the Seasons

Notes on Leonardo and the Future of the Past

Grits Soufflé

Christmas Past

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