James Olney

At a time when the memoir has never been more popular, Memory and Narrative presents an account of how the weave of life-writing has altered over time to arrive at its present form. James Olney, tells the story of an evolving literary form that originated in the autobiographical writings of St. Augustine, underwent profound and disruptive changes in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's life-writing trilogy, and found its momentary conclusion in the body of Samuel Beckett's work. Among other issues, Olney considers the rejection of the pronoun "I" by many post-Rousseau writers; the uses of narrative in the works of Beckett, Franz Kafka, and the sculptor Alberto Giacometti, and the role of literary memory in light of recent "memory work" from a variety of scientific disciplines. Giambattista Vico, Henry Adams, Gertrude Stein, Richard Wright, and Christa Wolf are some of the many writers examined in this monumental study.

The Weave of Life-Writing

Memory and Narrative

James Olney demonstrates that autobiography, because it provides the most direct narrative enactments of the ways, motives, and beliefs of a culture, is an excellent way to approach African literature. After a general discussion of the African ethos, each chapter takes up the "autobiographical" literature of a specific group in African society and treats it as both an expression of a personal vision and as a revelation of a permeating social reality. Originally published in 1974. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

An Approach to African Literature

Tell Me Africa

Voorhies Professor of English James Olney

James Olney examines the writings of seven men--Montaigne, Jung, George Fox, Darwin, Newman, Mills, and Eliot--and traces the essential and unique autobiographical impulse, and in a real sense makes it live. Originally published in 1972. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Meaning of Autobiography

Metaphors of Self

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1980.

The Perennial Philosophy—Yeats and Jung

The Rhizome and the Flower

Examines how the writing of memoirs has changed as a literary form, discussing its origins in the autobiographical writings of St. Augustine to the present

Jo Gulledge

Lewis P. Simpson

Donald E. Stanford

In the twenty years of its existence, the second series of the Southern Review continued the editorial orientation of the first series by presenting a range of regional and cosmopolitan works of fiction. This anthology is a collection of twenty-five short stories from the nearly three hundred published in the journal between 1965 and 1985. The editors have sought to illustrate the diversity of subject matter and the tremendous range of tone, voice, and technique that have characterized short fiction in the Southern Review. Although many of the contributors to Selected Stories from the “Southern Review” are southern, the collection also includes national and international, new and established writers. The focus of the anthology is on literary merit rather than regional considerations. “Abroad” by Nadine Gordimer, which depicts the experiences of a white South African visiting his son in Zimbabwe, is in the collection, along with John William Corrington’s “Pleadings,” the powerful account of an incident in the life of a south Louisiana attorney. Mary Lavin’s “The Face of Hate” addresses life amidst the conflict in Northern Ireland, and Elizabeth Spencer’s “The Cousins” explores the entanglements and coming of age of five young adults on a European vacation. Joyce Carol Oates’s “Détente” interweaves the personal and political aspects of a Soviet-American literary conference, and Robb Forman Dew follows the adventures of two naive Natchez girls in New Orleans in “Two Girls Wearing Perfume in the Summer.” From Louis D. Rubin’s tentative young newspaperman in “The St. Anthony Chorale” to William Mills’s sure-footed X-ray technician in “Sweet Tickfaw Run Softly, Till I End My Song,” from Rita Dove’s compelling “Secondhand Man” to John E. Wildeman’s Satirical “Surfiction”—these are characters and stories from the new series of the Southern Review which offer resounding proof that the brilliant publishing tradition originating with Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren has been preserved by a magazine that still maintains its national literary reputation.

Selected Stories from the Southern Review

Professor Olney gathers together in this book some of the best and most important writings on autobiography produced in the past two decades. Originally published in 1980. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

James Olney

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