William Maxwell
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William Keepers Maxwell was an American novelist, short story writer and editor. He explored his Illinois childhood in a series of novels and short story collections, including Bright Center of Heaven (1934), They Came Like Swallows (1937), The Folded Leaf (1945) and So Long, See You Tomorrow (1980). Maxwell is sometimes called a ‘writer’s writer’, who has never had extraordinary commercial success but is highly respected by other writers for his craftsmanship and power. He also nurtured other developing writers as a longtime fiction editor for the New Yorker.William Maxwell, throughout a long residence in New York, has continued to explore his Illinois childhood in Lincoln and Chicago in a series of novels and short-story collections. He taught freshman compostion at the University of Illinois and later became an associate editor of the New Yorker magazine. He was the fiction editor of The New Yorker magazine for forty years (1936-1975).
* Name engraved on the frieze of the Illinois State Library alongside other great Illinois literary figures, 1990
All the days and nights : | Ancestors : | Early novels and stories / | Later novels and stories : | The chateau | The château. | The old man at the railroad crossing and other tales | The outermost dream : | They came like swallows | They came like swallows / | Time will darken it : | Time will darken it.