Prose

By Elizabeth Bishop

Book Overview

Elizabeth Bishop's prose is not nearly as well known as her poetry, but she was a dazzling and compelling prose writer too, as the publication of her letters has shown. Her stories are often on the borderline of memoir, and vice versa. From her college days, she could find the most astonishing yet thoroughly apt metaphors to illuminate her ideas. This volume--edited by the poet, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic, and Bishop scholar Lloyd Schwartz--includes virtually all her published shorter prose pieces and a number of prose works not published until after her death. Here are her famous as well as her lesser-known stories, crucial memoirs, literary and travel essays, book reviews, and--for the first time--her original draft of Brazil , the Time/Life volume she repudiated in its published version, and the correspondence between Bishop and the poet Anne Stevenson, the author of the first book-length volume devoted to Bishop.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374532737
• ISBN13: 9780374532734
• Release Date: February 2011
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Length: 528 Pages
• Weight: 1.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Brilliant prose from a brilliant poet

Ellizabeth Bishop's memoirs are as individual and remarkable as her poetry. The insight that the former gives to a reader of the latter deepens the reader's pleasure in both.

A delicate collection.

I hope that I will be forgiven for saying that as much as I enjoyed this volume of Bishop's prose, I still don't find it as robust as her poetry. While lovely, some of these entries were so slight I was afraid to breathe and break them. The book is divided into two halves-- a series of memories and a series of stories. I liked the memories section the best: particularly "The Country Mouse" and her memoir of Marianne Moore. Of the stories, I liked "Gwendolyn" the best-- a story about a dying little girl (which is not nearly as saccharine as it sounds from that description.) I enjoyed this book, I *think* I enjoyed it in its own right. But if I'm honest, I'm not sure how I would have felt about it had I not already loved Bishop's poems so much.

The Collected Prose

As in all of the writings by Elizabeth Bishop, The Collected Prose allows the reader to open the door into her masterfully brilliant and private world of thoughts. I took this book to the beach each night before the sun went down and read one or two of her poems ... Bishop's ability to connect our everyday actions with a deeper, higher meaning makes this book one of my all time favorites. She is truly a wonderful creator and writer!