Barbara Burkhardt is an associate professor of English and a University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Springfield. A close acquaintance of William Maxwell, she organized his correspondence for the Maxwell archives at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Acknowledgments ix
Credits xiii
Meeting Maxwell 1
Introduction 7
1. Childhood: A Lifetime of Material, 1908-33 19
2. First Fiction: Bright Center of Heaven, 1933-34 48
3. Breakout Novel: They Came Like Swallows, 1934-38 61
4. Mature Novelist 1: The Folded Leaf, 1938-45 79
5. Mature Novelist 2: Time Will Darken It, 1945-48 135
6. Turning Point: The New Yorker and The Chateau, 1948-61 171
7. The Novelist as Historian: Ancestors, 1961-71 205
8. Maxwell's New York, 1974-76 219
9. The Masterwork: So Long, See You Tomorrow, 1972-80 229
10. Summing Up: Late Short Works, 1980-92 257
Conclusion: Stand, Accepting 270
Notes 275
Index 297
Illustrations follow page 170
