| A Century of Arts and Letters: The History of the National Institute of Arts & Letters and the American Academy of Arts & Letters as Told, Decade by Contributor(s): Updike, John (Editor) |
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ISBN: 0231102488 ISBN-13: 9780231102483 Publisher: Columbia University Press OUR PRICE: $54.45 Product Type: Hardcover Published: May 1998 Annotation: With its ranks limited to 250 members, the American Academy of Arts and Letters is counted among the foremost honors an American in the arts can receive. For this tribute to the Academy, eleven of its current members provide illuminating insights into those artists whom members have held in high esteem--and those they have not. 85 photos. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | Native American - Art - Literary Criticism | American - General |
| Dewey: 700.607 |
| LCCN: 97-40940 |
| Physical Information: 1.32" H x 7.31" W x 10.25" (2.26 lbs) 346 pages |
| Themes: - Ethnic Orientation - Native American |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Although the American Academy of Arts and Letters is best known for the awards and prizes it grants artists, writers, and musicians, the organization itself remains as little-understood as its awards are acclaimed. John Updike has brought together eleven current members-including Cynthia Ozick, Norman Mailer, and Louis Auchincloss--to raid the Academy's archives. With each writer taking on a decade of the Academy's history, they have created an eye-opening documentary of an organization central to the arts in America for the past century. R. W. B. Lewis writes of the admission of Julia Ward Howe in 1907 (at the age of 86) as the first woman in the Academy, and the intense debate about the very consideration of female members. Lewis also recounts the humorous saga of the feuding James brothers, with William declining membership and decrying the election several months prior to the nomination of his "younger and shallower and vainer brother" Henry. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., tells of the Academy's struggle against modernism in the 1930s--largely a one-man war waged by its feisty septuagenarian secretary, Robert Underwood Johnson-that resulted in a perennial failure to nominate F. Scott Fitzgerald and H. L. Mencken, among others. And composer Jack Beeson notes Gore Vidal's droll telegram declining an honorary membership on the grounds that he was already a member of the Diners Club. |