1955 - Literature

Literature

The Universal Illustrated European-American Encyclopedia (Enciclopedia universal ilustrada europeoamericana) published from 1905 to 1934 appears in a seven-volume miniature edition under the title Espasa-Calpe: diccionario enciclopédico abreviado.

The 28-volume World Encyclopedia (Sekai Dai-Hyakka Jiten) published by Heibonsha from 1931 to 1935 appears in a new 33-volume edition that will meet with competition from the publishing houses Gakken, Kodansha, and Shogakukan as sales people try to get encyclopedias into every Japanese home and school (see 1999).

Nonfiction: The Opium of the Intellectuals by French political theorist-sociologist Raymond Aron, 50, whose widely read political column in Le Figaro has vigorously opposed totalitarianism of any kind and championed the cause of individual freedom (Aron has had a long-standing antagonism toward Jean-Paul Sartre and his book is an outspoken attack on French Marxism); Grand Inquest: The Story of Congressional Investigations by Telford Taylor, who called Sen. McCarthy "a dangerous adventurer" in a speech he gave at West Point 2 years ago; The Right to Read: The Battle Against Censorship by Paul Blanshard; Two Minutes Till Midnight by Elmer Davis is about war and peace in the nuclear age; The Age of Reform by Richard Hofstadter is about the Populist, Progressive, and New Deal eras; The Liberal Tradition in America by Youngstown, Ohio-born Harvard professor of government Louis Hartz, 36; Economics and the Art of Controversy and The Great Crash, 1929 by John Kenneth Galbraith; Mainsprings of the German Economic Revival by German-born U.S. journalist-economist Henry C. Wallich, 37; Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism by Jamaica, N.Y.-born Rutgers historian John Higham, 34; The Strange Career of Jim Crow by C. Vann Woodward; Gift from the Sea (autobiographical essays) by Anne Morrow Lindbergh; Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin; The Expansion of Elizabethan England by A. L. Rowse; Against the Law by former London Daily Mail diplomatic correspondent Peter Wildeblood, 32, who was convicted of conspiring to incite a young man to commit "indecent acts" after admitting in open court March 24 of last year that he was a homosexual and sentenced to 18 months in prison (the book prompts debates in both houses of Parliament and leads to the establishment of a government panel; see human rights [Wolfenden Report], 1957); The Achievement of Samuel Johnson by Mankato, Minn.-born Harvard English professor W. (Walter) Jackson Bate, 37; The Guinness Book of World Records by London sportswriter Ross McWhirter, 30, and his twin brother Norris, whose book will have sales of more than 24 million copies in 14 languages in the next 20 years (Guiness Breweries managing director Sir Hugh [Eyre Campbell] Beaver, 65, came up with the idea for the book during an Irish shooting party when he and his friends failed to bring down a flock of golden plovers and argued about whether the golden plover or red grouse was Europe's fastest bird. A reference book that settled such disputes at bars and public houses could be a good promotional tool, he reasoned).

Philosopher José Ortega y Gasset dies of cancer at Madrid October 18 at age 72 ("We have the need of history in its entirety," he has written, "not to fall back on, but to see if we can escape from it"); author-critic-historian Bernard De Voto dies of a heart attack at New York November 13 at age 58; biographer Marquis James of a cerebral hemorrhage at Rye, N.Y., November 19 at age 64; author and world federalism advocate Lionel G. Curtis outside Oxford November 24 at age 83; historian Ludwig Lewisohn at Miami Beach December 31 at age 72.

Fiction: Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien; Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, whose tale of a middle-aged European's love for a passionate 12-year-old American "nymphet" is a satire that reverses the usual contrast between American innocence and European worldliness (Nabokov has written the book at Cornell University, where he has taught Russian literature and other courses since 1948; proceeds from his bestseller will enable him to quit teaching in 1959); The Quiet American by Graham Greene, whose glowing review of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita in the Sunday Times of London helps it to avoid censorship and become a phenomenal success; The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis; Extraordinary Tales by Jorge Luis Borges; Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk; The Recognitions by New York-born novelist William Gaddis, 33; The Spider's House by Paul Bowles; The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit by Westport, Conn.-born novelist Sloan Wilson, 35, is about status-hungry suburbanites; The Deer Park by Norman Mailer; The Ginger Man by Brooklyn-born Irish novelist J. P. (James Patrick) Donleavy, 29; Auntie Mame by Evanston, Ill.-born Foreign Affairs magazine promotion manager Patrick Dennis (Edward Everett Tanner III), 34, whose story of a rich young orphan and his eccentric aunt has been rejected by 10 publishers (see play, 1956); The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearn by Irish-born Canadian novelist Brian Moore, 34; Street of Riches (Rue Deschambault) by Gabrielle Roy; White Man (Shiroi hito) and Yellow Man (Kiiroi hito) by Japanese novelist Shusaku Endo, 32, who became a Roman Catholic at age 11; Ten North Frederick by John O'Hara; Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor; A Good Man Is Hard to Find (stories) by Flannery O'Connor includes "The Artificial Nigger" and "Parker's Back"; A Charmed Life by Mary McCarthy; To Whom She Will (in the United States, Amrita) by Cologne-born writer Ruth Jhabvala (née Prawer), 28, who became a British citizen in 1948 and has lived in India since 1951; A Child in the House by Irish novelist Janet McNeill, 47; The Seizure of Power (Zdobycie wladzy) and The Issa Valley (Dolina Issy) by Czeslaw Milosz; The Etruscan (Turms, Kuolematon) by Mika Waltari; Up the Trail from Texas by J. Frank Dobie; To Tame a Land by Louis L'Amour; Tunnel in the Sky by Robert A. Heinlein; Hell's Pavement by Oregon-born New York science-fiction writer Damon (Francis) Knight, 32; The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith; Pray for a Brave Heart by Helen MacInnes; The Name Is Archer (stories) by John Ross MacDonald, whose hard-boiled detective Lew Archer deliberately echoes the name of Miles Archer, the fictional partner of Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade; Witness for the Prosecution by Agatha Christie.

Thomas Mann suffers a heart attack in July while on holiday in the Netherlands and dies at Zürich August 12 at age 80; novelist-screenwriter Horace McCoy dies of a heart attack at Beverly Hills, Calif., December 15 at age 58.

Poetry: "Howl" by New York beatnik poet Allen Ginsberg, 29, who reads it at the Six Gallery in Berkeley, Calif., and wins acclaim in the youth underground; Pictures of the Cold World by Yonkers, N.Y.-born San Francisco poet Lawrence (Monsanto) Ferlinghetti (originally Ferling), 36, who 2 years ago helped open the city's City Lights Pocket Bookshop, this year founds the avant-garde City Lights Books publishing house, and next year will publish Ginsberg's poem as Howl and Other Poems (see 1957); Thou Shalt Not Kill by Kenneth Rexroth; Pictures of the Gone World and All That Is Lovely in Men by Robert Creeley; The Vestal Lady on Brattle by New York-born beatnik poet (Nunzio) Gregory Corso, 25, who at age 17 was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment for theft and met Allen Ginsberg after his release (he will join Ginsberg at San Francisco next year); Journey to Love by William Carlos Williams; The Shield of Achilles by W. H. Auden; A Way of Looking: Poems by Elizabeth Jennings; The Less Deceived by English poet Philip Larkin, 33; The Last May (Posledni maj) by Milan Kundera; Good News of Death and Other Poems by Louis Simpson; The Diamond Cutters by Adrienne Rich.

Poet Wallace Stevens dies at Hartford, Conn., August 2 at age 75.

Juvenile: Eloise: A Book for Precocious Grown Ups by St. Louis-born New York entertainer Kay Thompson (née Kitty Fink), 51 (approximate), whose ill-mannered, ill-tempered, ugly 6-year-old heroine lives at the Plaza Hotel (whose management will hang a portrait of the little imp in its lobby). Thompson came up with the idea for her precocious child impersonation during rehearsals of her act with the Williams Brothers, with whom she sang from 1947 to 1953, has used it since last year in a one-woman show at the Plaza's Persian Room, and has been introduced to illustrator Hillary Knight, whose pictures bring Eloise to life; Harold and the Purple Crayon by New York cartoonist Crockett Johnson (David Johnson Leisk), 48, who has been drawing the "Barnaby" comic strip since 1941 and will continue it until 1962; What Can You Do with a Shoe? by Beatrice Schenk de Regniers, two-color illustrations by Maurice Sendak.