A Splendid Intelligence: The Life of Elizabeth Hardwick

Elizabeth Hardwick was a Kentucky-born writer who rose to prominence in 1939 and had a tumultuous life filled with poverty, literary friendships, and a marriage to Robert Lowell. Her private letters were published in The Dolphin, causing a literary controversy. Hardwick's essays were known for their novelistic flair and unique perspective. Biographer Cathy Curtis provides an intimate portrait of Hardwick in A Splendid Intelligence.

Format: Hardback
Length: 400 pages
Publication date: 04 January 2022
Publisher: WW Norton & Co

Elizabeth Hardwick, born in Kentucky in 1939, embarked on a journey to New York City aboard a Greyhound bus, where she swiftly established herself as a formidable presence within the intellectual elite. Her life was marked by a series of challenging experiences, including periods of severe poverty, enduring friendships with renowned literary figures such as Mary McCarthy, confrontations with authors she critiqued in The New York Review of Books (of which she was a cofounder), and a marriage to the poet Robert Lowell, whom she deeply loved and supported through his battles with bipolar illness. Lowell's decision to publish excerpts from her private letters in The Dolphin caused significant distress to Hardwick and sparked a major literary controversy. Hardwick's essays were characterized by a novelistic style and a uniquely original perspective. In A Splendid Intelligence, biographer Cathy Curtis presents an intimate portrayal of an exceptional woman who emerged from a long and turbulent marriage with the clarity and wisdom that illuminate her remarkable work.

Weight: 676g
Dimension: 162 x 237 x 36 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781324005520