Snappy newsletters. Simple Facebook sharing. Spirited comments. Sweet features are waiting… GET THEM NOW!

Hot on Facebook
Guy Buys $123 Safe on eBay, Finds $26,000 Inside Seller tries to get half the cash back, fails »

Writer Hardwick Dead at 91

Critic, essayist, novelist co-founded New York Review of Books

By Jonas Oransky,  Newser Staff

Posted Dec 4, 2007 5:05 PM CST
Email

(Newser) – Elizabeth Hardwick, co-founder of the New York Review of Books, died Sunday at 91, the Times reports. The Kentucky-born Hardwick moved north in 1939—“my aim was to be a New York Jewish intellectual,” she said later—and became a critical giant. "I have always written essays as if they were examples of imaginative writing, as I believe them to be," she wrote.

With Barbara and Jason Epstein, Hardwick and her husband, the poet Robert Lowell, launched the New York Review in 1963. She became a literary doyenne, writing furiously and serving on innumerable prize committees. At the New York Review, Jason Epstein once said, she was less an editor than "a presiding sensibility whom everyone wished to satisfy."

Elizabeth Hardwick, a Kentucky-born author and critic whose incisive prose and steady spirit helped her well fulfill her dream of becoming a New York Intellectual, has died at age 91. Hardwick, who resided for decades on Manhattan's Upper West Side, died in her sleep Sunday Dec. 2, 2007, night at...
Elizabeth Hardwick, a Kentucky-born author and critic whose incisive prose and steady spirit helped her well fulfill her dream of becoming a "New York Intellectual," has died at age 91. Hardwick, who...   (Associated Press)
USA. New York. 1968. Robert Lowell, poet. (NYC31350)
USA. New York. 1968. Robert Lowell, poet. (NYC31350)   (Magnum Photos)
« Prev« Prev | Next »Next » Slideshow
To report an error on this story, notify our editors.
A snapshot of the day's best news stories.
 
COMMENTS
Be the first to comment on this story.

The arc of a remarkable career
Associated Press

Read more about NYRB and its publishing press
Jewish Exponent

Read an excerpt of Hardwick's Norman Mailer parody in this essay
Pajamas Media

 
obituary • literature • New York Review of Books • Elizabeth Hardwick • Robert Lowell • Barbara Epstein • Jason Epstein • famous people who died

More Newser Stories

'Fletch' Author Dead at 71

Arthur C. Clarke Is Dead at 90

A Wrinkle in Time Author Dead at 88

Novelist Jose Saramago Dead at 87

Oral Roberts Dead at 91
NEWS FROM OUR PARTNERS
Other Sites We Like:   24/7 Wall St.   |   Betty Confidential   |   BuzzFeed   |   Cracked   |   Fark   |   Timelines   |   The Frisky   |   Geek Sugar   |   NewsOne