Tuesday, August 05, 2014

From Gravetapping: The Library of Congress edition of Elmore Leonard




Ed here: Am I right to assume that there may someday be another volume of his later work?
Actually I've always preferred Leonard's earlier work. Fifty Two Pick-Up and Unknown Man are for me more important novels than his more heralded later ones. The vaunted George Higgins influence ran thin for me and rather quickly. Same for his shorter work. His western short stories are so superior to his crime short stories they might have been written by different people. And my all-time favorite Leonard novels remains Valdez Is Coming. The only novel I've ever read--other than The Great Gatsby--I would call perfect. 



From Ben Boulden:

Library of America Scheduled to Release 

Elmore Leonard Omnibus

This is kind of cool news. Library of America is welcoming the work of Elmore Leonard to its series of high quality hardcover omnibus editions. It is includes four of Mr Leonard’s early novels: Fifty-Two Pickup (1974), Swag (1976),Unknown Man No. 89 (1977), and The Switch(1978). Its scheduled release date is August 28, 2014.



Library of America traditionally publishes classic American literature—Walt Whitman, Sherwood Anderson, Edith Wharton, etc.—and over the last several years it has begun publishing genre writers from the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, including work by Philip K. Dick, Robert Heinlein, Leigh Brackett, Richard Matheson, David Goodis, Cornell Woolrich, Jim Thompson, and Charles Willeford.

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1 comment:

Rick Ollerman said...

More Leonard is coming. On the LibraryThing site is a forum for the Library of America. The marketing director reads all the posts and answers all questions. I don't remember the schedule for Leonard but they are coming.