Josephine Herbst, The Starched Blue Sky of Spain and Other Memoirs

Angela E. Hubler (Kansas State University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Domains

Political Science

Dates

First circulation or publication 1991

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Autobiography (any)
Essays/ Lectures (any)
Non-fictional prose

Resources

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While many critics agree with Alfred Kazin's

New York Times Book Review

assessment that Josephine Herbst's lyrical

The Starched Blue Sky of Spain and Other Memoirs

is her “best book”, the memoirs were not published

as a book

until 1991, almost thirty years after her death in 1969. According to her biographer Elinor Langer, Herbst began writing her memoirs in the mid 1950s. Herbst published three sections of the memoir as essays in

The Noble Savage

(1960, 1961) and

New American Review

(1968). A previously unpublished section, “The Magicians and their Apprentices”, was included in the 1991 publication. This important addition focuses on the significance of Herbst's childhood to her formation as a writer. While the yearning to leave the Midwest of her childhood for the “great…

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813 words

Citation: Hubler, Angela E.. "The Starched Blue Sky of Spain and Other Memoirs". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 July 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7821, accessed 24 November 2024.]