Look Homeward, Angel
First edition
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| Author | Thomas Wolfe |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Bildungsroman |
| Publisher | Charles Scribner's Sons |
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Publication date
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1929 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 544 |
| OCLC | 220422413 |
Look Homeward, Angel: A Story of the Buried Life is a 1929 novel by Thomas Wolfe. It is Wolfe's first novel, and is considered a highly autobiographical American coming-of-age story. The character of Eugene Gant is generally believed to be a depiction of Wolfe himself. The novel covers the span of time from Eugene's birth to the age of 19. The setting is the fictional town and state of Altamont, Catawba, a fictionalization of his home town, Asheville, North Carolina. Playwright Ketti Frings wrote a theatrical adaptation of Wolfe's work in a 1957 play of the same title.
Thomas Wolfe's father, William Oliver Wolfe, ordered an angel statue from New York and it was used for years as a porch advertisement at the family monument shop on Patton Avenue (now the site of the Jackson Building). W. O. Wolfe sold the statue to a family in Hendersonville, North Carolina in 1906. The angel was then moved to that town's Oakdale Cemetery.
The title comes from the John Milton poem Lycidas:
"Look homeward Angel now, and melt with ruth:
And, O ye Dolphins, waft the hapless youth."
(163-164)
Wolfe's original title was The Building of a Wall, which he later changed to O Lost.
Wolfe began the novel in 1926, intending to delve into "the strange and bitter magic of life." The novel was written over 20 months. On the novel's completion, Wolfe gave the vast manuscript to Scribner editor Maxwell Perkins. Though Perkins was impressed with the young author's talent, he demanded that the novel be revised and condensed to a publishable size. The two sat down and worked through it together. After being trimmed by 60,000 words, the novel was published in 1929. Wolfe became insecure about the editing process, feeling that the novel was Perkins' almost as much as his own. This led to an estrangement between the two, resulting in Wolfe leaving Scribner. Wolfe later made amends with Perkins, prior to the former's death in 1938. The original unedited version was published in 2000.
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Wikipedia