Elizabeth Hardwick

Elizabeth Bruce Hardwick (July 27, 1916 – December 2, 2007) was an American literary critic, novelist, and short story writer. Early life and education Elizabeth Bruce Hardwick was born as the eighth of eleven children in Lexington, Kentucky, on July 27, 1916, to strict Protestant parents, the daughter of Eugene Allen Hardwick, a plumbing and heating contractor, and Mary (née Ramsey) Hardwick. She graduated from the University of Kentucky with a BA in 1938 and with an MA in 1939. She then entered the PhD program at Columbia University, though withdrew from graduate study in 1941 to concentrate on writing. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1947. Career In 1959, Hardwick published in Harper's, "The Decline of Book Reviewing", a generally harsh and even scathing critique of book reviews published in American periodicals of the time. She published four books of criticism: A View of My Own (1962), Seduction and Betrayal (1974), Bartleby in Manhattan (1983), and Sight-Readings (1998). In 1961, she edited The Selected Letters of William James.