Cowley, Malcolm

Cowley, Malcolm

(1898–1989) literary critic, editor; born in Belasco, Pa. He interrupted his studies at Harvard to serve with the American Ambulance Corps in World War I. Returning to France for graduate studies (1921–23), he got to know some of the American writers he would write of in his first widely recognized book, Exile's Return (1934). Meanwhile, he worked as a free-lance writer, contributing book reviews and critical essays, translating French works, and composing his own poetry. As associate editor of the New Republic (1929–44) he promoted contemporary American writers. As literary advisor to Viking Press (1948–85) he edited popularly available editions of selected works of writers from Hawthorne and Whitman to F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway; it is generally recognized that his Viking Portable edition of William Faulkner (1946) was responsible for launching Faulkner's serious reputation. Cowley encouraged later generations of writers such as John Cheever, Jack Kerouac, and Ken Kesey and continued writing and lecturing to promote American literature until his final years.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.