O Lost

Look Homeward, Angel. A Story of the Buried Life

By Thomas Wolfe

2000

First Published

4.35

Average Rating

694

Number of Pages

21H11M

Audio Length

The editing of Thomas Wolfe's first novel, originally titled O Lost, has been the subject of literary argument since its 1929 publication in abridged form as Look Homeward, Angel. This powerful coming-of-age novel tells the rich story of Eugene Gant, a young North Carolina man who longs to escape the confines of his small-town life and his tumultuous family. At the insistence of Maxwell Perkins, the legendary editor at Charles Scribner's Sons, Wolfe cut the typescript by 22 percent. Sixty-six thousand words were omitted for reasons of propriety and publishing economics, as well as to remove material deemed expendable by Perkins. To be published for the first time on October 3, 2000 — the centenary of Wolfe's birth—O Lost presents the complete text of the novel's manuscript.For seventy years Wolfe scholars have speculated about the merits of the unpublished complete work and about the editorial process—particularly the reputed collaboration of Perkins and Wolfe. In order to present this classic novel in its original form as written by Wolfe, the text has been established by Arlyn and Matthew J. Bruccoli from the carbon copy of the typescript and from Wolfe's pencil manuscript. In addition to restoring passages omitted from Look Homeward, Angel, the editors have corrected errors introduced by the typist and other mistakes in the original text and have explicated problematic readings. An introduction and appendixes—including textual, bibliographical, and explanatory notes—reconstruct Wolfe's process of creation and place it in the context of the publishing process.

Avg Rating

4.35

Number of Ratings

188

5 STARS

56%

4 STARS

29%

3 STARS

10%

2 STARS

1 STARS

goodreads

Author

Thomas Wolfe

Author · 22 books

People best know American writer Thomas Clayton Wolfe for his autobiographical novels, including Look Homeward, Angel (1929) and the posthumously published You Can't Go Home Again (1940). Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels and many short stories, dramatic works and novellas. He mixed highly original, poetic, rhapsodic, and impressionistic prose with autobiographical writing. Wolfe wrote and published books that vividly reflect on American culture and the mores, filtered through his sensitive, sophisticated and hyper-analytical perspective. People widely knew him during his own lifetime. Wolfe inspired the works of many other authors, including Betty Smith with A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Robert Morgan with Gap Creek; Pat Conroy, author of Prince of Tides, said, "My writing career began the instant I finished Look Homeward, Angel." Jack Kerouac idolized Wolfe. Wolfe influenced Ray Bradbury, who included Wolfe as a character in his books. (from Wikipedia)