William Keepers Maxwell Jr. (August 16, 1908 – July 31, 2000) was an American editor, novelist, short story writer, essayist, children's author, and memoirist. He served as a fiction editor at ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' from 1936 to 1975. An editor devoted to his writers, Maxwell became a mentor and confidant to many authors.

Early life

Maxwell was born in

Lincoln, Illinois Lincoln is a city in Logan County, Illinois, United States. First settled in the 1830s, it is the only town in the United States that was named for Abraham Lincoln before he became president; he practiced law there from 1847 to 1859. Lincoln is h ...

on August 16, 1908. His parents were William Keepers Maxwell and Eva Blossom (née Blinn) Maxwell. During the 1918 flu epidemic, the 10-year-old Maxwell became ill and survived, but his mother died. After his mother's death, the boy was sent to live with an aunt and uncle in

Bloomington, Illinois Bloomington is a city and the county seat of McLean County, Illinois, United States. It is adjacent to the town of Normal, and is the more populous of the two principal municipalities of the Bloomington–Normal metropolitan area. Bloomingto ...

. His father remarried, and young Maxwell joined him in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

. He attended

Senn High School Senn High School is a public four-year high school located in the Edgewater neighborhood on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Senn is operated by the Chicago Public Schools system and was opened on 3 February 1913. The school ...

. He received his

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

'' from the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Uni ...

in 1930 where he was class salutatorian, elected to

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ...

, poetry editor of ''

The Daily Illini ''The Daily Illini'', commonly known as the ''DI'', is a student-run newspaper that has been published for the community of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign since 1871. Weekday circulation during fall and spring semesters is 7,000; c ...

'', and a member of

Sigma Pi Sigma Pi () is a collegiate fraternity with 233 chapters at American universities. As of 2021, the fraternity had more than 5,000 undergraduate members and over 110,000 alumni. Sigma Pi headquarters are in Nashville, Tennessee. The fraternit ...

fraternity. Maxwell earned an A.M. at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

. Maxwell taught English briefly at the University of Illinois where he served as faculty advisor to his fraternity and published an article about it in the fraternity's magazine before moving to New York.

Career

Maxwell was best known for being a fiction editor of ''The New Yorker'' magazine for forty years (1936–1975), where he worked with writers such as

Sylvia Townsend Warner Sylvia Nora Townsend Warner (6 December 1893 – 1 May 1978) was an English novelist, poet and musicologist, known for works such as ''Lolly Willowes'', '' The Corner That Held Them'', and '' Kingdoms of Elfin''. Life Sylvia Townsend Warner w ...

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bor ...

John Updike John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others being Booth Tar ...

, J. D. Salinger,

John Cheever John William Cheever (May 27, 1912 – June 18, 1982) was an American short story writer and novelist. He is sometimes called "the Chekhov of the suburbs". His fiction is mostly set in the Upper East Side of Manhattan; the Westchester suburbs; ...

Mavis Gallant Mavis Leslie de Trafford Gallant, , née Young (11 August 1922 – 18 February 2014), was a Canadian writer who spent much of her life and career in France. Best known as a short story writer, she also published novels, plays and essays. Pe ...

Frank O'Connor Frank O'Connor (born Michael Francis O'Donovan; 17 September 1903 – 10 March 1966) was an Irish author and translator. He wrote poetry (original and translations from Irish), dramatic works, memoirs, journalistic columns and features on a ...

Larry Woiwode Larry Alfred Woiwode (October 30, 1941April 28, 2022) was an American writer from North Dakota, where he was the state's Poet Laureate from 1995 until his death. His work appeared in '' The New Yorker'', '' Esquire'', '' The Atlantic Monthly'', ...

Maeve Brennan Maeve Brennan (January 6, 1917 – November 1, 1993) was an Irish short story writer and journalist. She moved to the United States in 1934 when her father was appointed to the Irish Legation in Washington. She was an important figure in bo ...

John O'Hara John Henry O'Hara (January 31, 1905 – April 11, 1970) was one of America's most prolific writers of short stories, credited with helping to invent ''The New Yorker'' magazine short story style.John O'Hara: Stories, Charles McGrath, ed., The ...

Eudora Welty Eudora Alice Welty (April 13, 1909 – July 23, 2001) was an American short story writer, novelist and photographer who wrote about the American South. Her novel '' The Optimist's Daughter'' won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty received numerou ...

Shirley Hazzard Shirley Hazzard (30 January 1931 – 12 December 2016) was an Australian-American novelist, short story writer, and essayist. She was born in Australia and also held U.S. citizenship. Hazzard's 1970 novel '' The Bay of Noon'' was shortlisted ...

, and

Isaac Bashevis Singer Isaac Bashevis Singer ( yi, יצחק באַשעװיס זינגער; November 11, 1903 – July 24, 1991) was a Polish-born American Jewish writer who wrote and published first in Yiddish and later translated himself into English with the help ...

. Welty wrote of him as an editor: "For fiction writers, he was the headquarters." He also wrote six novels, short stories and essays, children's stories, and a memoir, ''Ancestors'' (1972). His fiction has recurring themes of childhood, family, loss, and lives changed quietly and irreparably. Much of his work is autobiographical, particularly concerning the loss of his mother when he was 10 years old and growing up in rural

Midwestern United States The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...

. After the flu epidemic, young Maxwell had to move away from his house, which he referred to as the "Wunderkammer" or "Chamber of Wonders". He spoke of his loss, "It happened too suddenly, with no warning, and we none of us could believe it or bear it ... the beautiful, imaginative, protected world of my childhood swept away." In 1968, Maxwell was elected president of the

National Institute of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...

. Maxwell was a friend and correspondent of the English writer Sylvia Townsend Warner, and was her literary executor. He edited a volume of her letters, and a further volume of his correspondence with her, ''The Element of Lavishness'', was published in 2001. Since his death in 2000, several biographical works about him have been published, including ''A William Maxwell Portrait: Memories and Appreciations'' (W. W. Norton & Co., 2004), ''My Mentor: A Young Man's Friendship with William Maxwell'' by Alec Wilkinson (Houghton-Mifflin, 2002), and ''William Maxwell: A Literary Life'' by Barbara Burkhardt (University of Illinois Press, 2005). In 2008, the

Library of America The Library of America (LOA) is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature. Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LOA has published over 300 volumes by authors ran ...

published the first of two collections of works by Maxwell, ''Early Novels and Stories'', edited by Christopher Carduff. His collected edition of Maxwell's fiction, published to mark the writer's centenary, was completed by publication of the second volume, ''Later Novels and Stories'', in the fall of 2008.

Personal life

William Maxwell married Emily Gilman Noyes of

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous ...

. Emily Maxwell was an accomplished painter, winning the Medal of Honor in 1986 from the

National Association of Women Artists The National Association of Women Artists, Inc. (NAWA) is a United States organization, founded in 1889 to gain recognition for professional women fine artists in an era when that field was strongly male-oriented. It sponsors exhibitions, awards ...

. She also reviewed children's books for ''The New Yorker''. The couple were married for 55 years. Maxwell died eight days after his wife. They had two daughters, Katherine and artist and curator Emily Brooke ("Brookie") Maxwell. William Maxwell died on July 31, 2000 in New York City. The epitaph marking his memorial gravestone in Oregon reads, "The Work is the Message".

Works

Novels

* ''Bright Center of Heaven'' (1934) * ''They Came Like Swallows'' (1937) – autobiographical novella about the cruel impact of the 1918 flu epidemic, as seen through the eyes of an 8-year-old Midwestern child and his family * ''The Folded Leaf'' (1945) * ''Time Will Darken It'' (1948) * ''The Chateau'' (1961) * '' So Long, See You Tomorrow'' (1980) — An aging man remembers a boyhood friendship he had in 1920s Illinois, which falters following a murder.

Short-story collections

* ''The French Scarecrow'' (1956) * ''The Old Man at the Railroad Crossing and Other Tales'' (1966) * ''Over by the River, and Other Stories'' (1977) * ''Five Tales'' (1988) * ''Billie Dyer and Other Stories'' (1992) * ''All The Days and Nights: The Collected Stories of William Maxwell'' (1995)

Non-fiction

* ''Ancestors: A Family History'' (memoir) (1972) * ''The Outermost Dream'' (essay collection) (1989)

Children's books

* '' The Heavenly Tenants'' (1946) – The constellations of the

zodiac The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north or south (as measured in celestial latitude) of the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. The pa ...

come to life and visit a family farm in Wisconsin. * ''Mrs. Donald's Dog Bun and His Home Away from Home'' (1995)

Collections

* ''Early Novels and Stories: Bright Center of Heaven / They Came Like Swallows / The Folded Leaf / Time Will Darken It / Stories 1938–1956'' (

, 2008) * ''Later Novels and Stories: The Château / So Long, See You Tomorrow / Stories and Improvisations 1957 – 1999'' (Library of America, 2008)

Awards and honors

*1947 Newbery Medal runner-up for ''The Heavenly Tenants'' *1980 William Dean Howells Medal for ''So Long, See You Tomorrow'', *1982 National Book Award for ''So Long, See You Tomorrow''

National Book Foundation The National Book Foundation (NBF) is an American nonprofit organization established, "to raise the cultural appreciation of great writing in America". Established in 1989 by National Book Awards, Inc.,Edwin McDowell. "Book Notes: 'The Joy Luc ...

.
"National Book Awards – 1982"
Retrieved March 11, 2012.''So Long'' won the 1982 award for paperback Fiction.
From 1980 to 1983 in National Book Awards history there were dual hardcover and paperback awards in most categories. Most of the paperback award-winners were reprints, including this one. *1984 Brandeis Creative Arts Award *1995

PEN/Malamud Award The PEN/Malamud Award and Memorial Reading honors "excellence in the art of the short story", and is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. The selection committee is composed of PEN/Faulkner directors and representatives of Bernard Ma ...

*1995 Mark Twain Award Mark Twain Award, Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature
Retrieved March 23, 2013