William Goyen (1915-1983) was an American original, acclaimed nationally and internationally, and one of the most important writers ever to be associated with the regional culture and literary history of Texas. Called "one of the great American writers of short fiction" by the New York Times Book Review, Goyen also authored the novels The House of Breath, In a Farther Country, Come, the Restorer, and Arcadio, as well as plays, poetry, and nonfiction. His literary works manifest an intimate intensity of feeling and an inimitable tone of voice, reflecting Goyen's lifelong desire to create art that was at once a spiritual quest for universal truths and an evocation of the rhythms of speech and storytelling of his native East Texas. This volume contains all of the uncollected autobiographical writings of William Goyen, including essays previously published in American periodicals and literary journals; interviews published in Paris Review, TriQuarterly, and the French magazine Masques; and previously unpublished materials drawn from Goyen's papers in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. The writings span Goyen's entire adult life, from youthful journals to autobiographical sketches to his long sketch for an autobiographical book, Six Women, which profiles women whom Goyen felt had influenced him deeply: Frieda Lawrence, Dorothy Brett, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Margo Jones, Millicent Rogers, and Katherine Anne Porter. The volume also contains late essays on growing up in Houston, writing from life, and illness and recovery. While most of William Goyen's work was autobiographical, writing a traditional autobiography proved to be inimical to his artistic sensibility and style. Thus, the pieces collected in Goyen constitute the most complete autobiography that we will ever have from this highly regarded writer.

Goyen: Autobiographical Essays, Notebooks, Evocations, Interviews (Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center Imprint Series)

Literature & Fiction

Goyen, William

Essays & Correspondence

University of Texas Press

Biographies & Memoirs

Regional U.S.

Proclaimed "one of the great American writers of short fiction" by the New York Times Book Review, William Goyen (1915-1983) had a quintessentially American literary career, in which national recognition came only after years of struggle to find his authentic voice, his audience, and an artistic milieu in which to create. These letters, which span the years 1937 to 1983, offer a compelling testament to what it means to be a writer in America.A prolific correspondent, Goyen wrote regularly to friends, family, editors, and other writers. Among the letters selected here are those to such major literary figures as W. H. Auden, Archibald MacLeish, Joyce Carol Oates, William Inge, Elia Kazan, Elizabeth Spencer, and Katherine Anne Porter. These letters constitute a virtual autobiography, as well as a fascinating introduction to Goyen's work. They add an important chapter to the study of American and Texas literature of the twentieth century.

William Goyen: Selected Letters from a Writer’s Life

United States

Arts & Literature

Thirty years and 26 short stories of William Goyen, nineteen of them previously published in Ghost and Flesh and The Faces of Blood Kindred. Several of the best among them--""The White Rooster,"" ""The Letter in the Cedarchest,"" ""Figure Over the Town""--also appeared in last year's Selected Writings of William Goyen. Sometimes his narrator is a traveling man gone up north to New York City (where Goyen was a book editor for many years) or over to Europe, but it takes only the slightest suggestion, say a glimpse of a ""Moss Rose"" on an urban sidewalk, to carry him home to East Texas. He says in his preface that ""for me, story telling is a rhythm. . . this pulse that beats in the material of life."" He has taken the ringing speech of his kith and kin and created out of it a style, a place, a state of mind that is distinctly Goyen country. The impetus for his writing, he admits, is homesickness. Which may account for the mournful, crooning tone he adopts, as well as the recurring thematic search for ""The Faces of Blood Kindred."" Orphans abound--like the son of ""Pore Perrie"" doomed to wander yet always return--as do ghosts and every manner of enchanted being. Goyen's community of barely literate folk continually defy their own down-to-earth gravity (like Flagpole Moody whose forty-day vigil is a mystery to all and sundry). Sisters, husbands and children alternately are starved or stifled in their bonds and all would concur with the pensive grandson of ""Old Wildwood"" who learns ""how melancholy and grand the history of relations was."" These are hypnotic tales, indeed they seem almost somniloquous, as if the memories of childhood had to be enshrined by an increase of out-of-time otherworldliness. This book is Goyen's gift to his people and his inheritance.

The collected stories of William Goyen

DOUBLEDAY

Dust jacket art by Paul Bacon. The bizarre, phantasmagorical world of Rose, in East Texas.

COME, THE RESTORER

NY s-109 Doubleday 1974

Mr. Goyen was the author of several collections of stories and a half-dozen novels. His work appeared in a number of magazines, including Atlantic Monthly, Mademoiselle, Redbook and the Southwest Review, where much of his fiction was first published. His latest novel, ''Arcadio,'' the first in seven years, will be brought out by Clarkson Potter, a division of Crown Publishers, on Oct. 3. Its title character is a Mexican-American hermaphrodite who appears in a vision to a boy in East Texas. The novel has already received critical notice from Publishers Weekly, which called it ''a beautifully written book that has the overwhelming power of a myth brought to life.'' Although Mr. Goyen did not receive the attention of such contemporaries as Truman Capote, Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer, his work was greatly admired by his peers and critics. He made his mark in 1950 with a novel called ''The House of Breath.'' In 1957, the author adapted the novel into a ''ballad for the theater'' and it was performed at the Circle in the Square. Born in East Texas In the early 1960's, Mr. Goyen was affiliated with the playwrights unit of the Actors Studio. One of his short stories, ''The Letter in the Cedar Chest,'' was adapted by Greer Johnson into the play ''Whisper to Me,'' produced at the Players Theater in New York. Mr. Goyen received a fellowship in 1963 to work as a resident playwright with the Lincoln Center Repertory Theater. His books included ''Ghost and Flesh,'' ''In a Farther Country,'' ''The Faces of Blood Kindred,'' ''The Fair Sister'' and ''Come the Restorer.''

Selected Writings of William Goyen

Random House]

Originally published in 1950, William Goyen's first novel is an elegy to childhood, memory, loss and love, celebrating boyhood in a small town in Texas.

The house of breath

Literary

Softcover, as shown, APPEARS NOT READ, but browned & tanned. 1974 1st thus.

Selected writings of William Goyen

Symbols and impressions surrounding a house in Charity, Texas reflect a search for place and identity

The House of Breath

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Goyen, William. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Goyen, William

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Goyen, William. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Goyen: Autobiographical Essays, Notebooks, Evocations, Interviews (Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center Imprint Series)

Goyen: Autobiographical Essays, Notebooks, Evocations, Interviews (Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center Imprint Series)

William Goyen: Selected Letters from a Writer’s Life

William Goyen: Selected Letters from a Writer’s Life

The collected stories of William Goyen

COME, THE RESTORER

Selected Writings of William Goyen

The house of breath

Selected writings of William Goyen

The House of Breath