Malcolm Lowry

Malcolm Lowry (July 28, 1909 – June 26, 1957) was an English poet and novelist.

Writings

Lowry published little during his lifetime, in comparison with the extensive collection of unfinished manuscripts he left. Of his two novels, Under the Volcano (1947) is now widely accepted not only as his masterpiece, but also as one of the great works of the twentieth century. It exemplifies Lowry's method as a writer, which involved drawing heavily upon autobiographical material and imbuing it with complex and allusive layers of symbolism. Under the Volcano depicts a series of complex and unwillingly destructive relationships and is set against a rich evocation of Mexico.

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Ultramarine (1933), written whilst Lowry was still an undergraduate, follows a young man's first sea voyage and his determination to gain the crew's acceptance.

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A collection of short stories, Hear Us, O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place (1961) was published after Lowry's death. The scholar and poet Earle Birney edited Selected Poems of Malcolm Lowry (1962). He also collaborated with Lowry's widow in editing the novella Lunar Caustic (1968) for republication. It is a conflation of several earlier pieces concerned with Bellevue Hospital, which Lowry was in the process of rewriting as a complete novel. With Douglas Day, Lowry's first biographer, Lowry's widow has also completed and edited the novels Dark as the Grave Wherein my Friend is Laid (1968) and October Ferry to Gabriola (1970) from Lowry's manuscripts.

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The Selected Letters of Malcolm Lowry, edited by his widow and Harvey Breit, was released in 1965, followed in 1995-6 by the two volume Sursam Corda! The Collected Letters of Malcolm Lowry, edited by Sherrill E. Grace. Scholarly editions of Lowry's final work in progress, La Mordida and his screen adaptation of Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night have also been issued.

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In 1976 Donald Brittain and John Kramer made an Academy Award nominated documentary about him called . http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070889/

Related Topics:
1976 - Donald Brittain - John Kramer - Academy Award

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