Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Cozzens, James Gould (Vol. 92) - James A. Epperson (review date 8 December 1978)

1. Printable Version
2. Download PDF
3. Cite this Page
4. Tweet This

James A. Epperson (review date 8 December 1978)

SOURCE: "Eclipse," in National Review, Vol. XXX, December 8, 1978, pp. 1552-54.

[In the following review of Just Representations, Epperson examines Cozzens's career, his fall from critical esteem, and argues that his work has significant literary merit.]

Only twenty years ago, any list of our top-ranking novelists would surely have included the name of James Gould Cozzens. His short stories and novels had won prizes and critical attention. Six of his books had been selected by the Book-of-the-Month Club. By Love Possessed (1957) received all the acclaim a writer could hope for: commercial success as a best-seller, condensation in the Reader's Digest, a cover story in Time, $250,000 for the movie rights, and, in 1960, the prestigious Howells Medal for fiction, awarded every five years by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. One respected critic went so far as...

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass

1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. George J. Becker (review date June 1949)
   2. Martin Price (review date Autumn 1957)
   3. Benjamin De Mott (essay date Winter 1957)
   4. Richard G. Stern (review date Winter 1958)
   5. Frederick Bracher (essay date 1959)
   6. The Times Literary Supplement (review date 6 May 1965)
   7. John Brooks (review date 25 August 1968)
   8. John Updike (review date 2 November 1968)
   9. The Times Literary Supplement (review date 30 January 1969)
   10. James A. Epperson (review date 8 December 1978)
   11. Robert Scholes (essay date 1979)
   12. Colin S. Cass (essay date Fall 1981)
   13. Irving Malin (essay date Winter 1981)
   14. Terry Teachout (review date 28 February 1986)
   15. Richard A. Posner (essay date 1988)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright