ANNIVERSARY: This website has been online 25 years (1999 – 2024) and is being launched in an updated WordPress format. Enjoy and please send any comments to the webmaster for improvements, suggestions, additions.
RECENT UPDATES
2024: Several readings from Miss MacIntosh, My Darling were broadcast by WBAI Radio in 1974-1975 as part of Charles Ruas’ radio program series “The Reading Experiment”. Thanks to David Weinstein and Charles Ruas the digital versions of those readings are now available on this website. Also available are the Charles Ruas’ 1974 interview with Marguerite, introducing the novel Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, and the Charles Ruas’ 1974 interview with Anaïs Nin, providing a poetic introduction to Marguerite Young’s novel Angel in the Forest.
Deep Vellum Press, a not-for-profit publisher located in Dallas, TX, acquired the Dalkey Archive Press in 2020. Deep Vellum is now offering backlisted classic titles under the banner of Dalkey Archive Essentials. There you will find two Marguerite Young titles, Angel in the Forest and Miss MacIntosh My Darling, both forthcoming in March of 2024.
In the October 24, 2023 issue of The New Yorker you will find a review article of Miss MacIntosh My Darling titled “The Longest, Least-Remembered Great American Novel” by Ryan Ruby. The article opens with some historical context of Young’s interests and her earlier works Angel in the Forest and Moderate Fable.
Sublunary Editions, an independent press in Seattle, WA, published a collection of Marguerite Young’s poetry in October of 2022. The work of putting together this volume has taken many years, thanks to Phil Bevis, founder of Arundel Books.
See Steven Moore’s review essay of The Collected Poems, “Reality is Wild and on the Wing“, posted on the Poetry Foundation website.
Steven Moore was an editor at Dalkey Archive Press responsible for republishing many of Marguerite Young’s works in the early 1990’s. See his recollection of Marguerite Young on the Shared Memories page.
Three volumes of commentary of MMMD were published as e-books by Coral Russell in 2022. These are helpful guides for group and class discussion. To All My Darlings: Volume 1, Chapters 1-44, Volume 2, Chapters 45-82, Volume 3, Exploring the Masterpiece.
An extensive history of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop has recently been published by Yale University Press: David O. Dowling. 2019. A Delicate Aggression: Savagery and Survival in the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Chapter 5, “The Guru: Marguerite Young” (106-122) covering her years of association with the workshop 1955-57 and 1942-43, draws heavily on the memoirs of Bruce Kellner and the archives of her life long friends Leola and Gustav Bergmann. Gustav was a professor of philosophy and psychology at the University of Iowa. Dowling draws a moving portrait of Young as teacher, mentor, and writer, who cared deeply for her craft and students.
You can find recollections from other students of Marguerite Young on the Shared Memories page.
Indianapolis remembers Marguerite Young with a mural painted by artist Jules Muck in 2019. The image of Marguerite drinking from a coffee cup overflowing with a rainbow is inspired by a c. 1948 photograph (which can be found in Photo Gallery) taken when she was beginning to write Miss MacIntosh My Darling (originally entitled The Worm in the Wheat).
In 2019 Rob Turner, a British literary historian with a focus on American Literature, publishes Counterfeit Culture: Truth and Authenticity in the American Prose Epic since 1960 (Cambridge University Press). Chapter 1, “Marguerite Young’s Flood of Consciousness” (pp. 14-56) explores interesting comparisons between Herman Melville’s novel Pierre, or the Ambiguities (1852) and Young’s epic novel.
Yesteryear
Several readings from Miss MacIntosh, My Darling were broadcast in 1974-1975 as part of Charles Ruas’ radio program “The Reading Experiment” broadcasted by WBAI. Thanks to David Weinstein and Charles Ruas the digital versions of those readings are now available on this website. Included are the Charles Ruas’ 1974 interview with Marguerite, introducing the novel Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, and the Charles Ruas’ 1974 interview with Anaïs Nin, providing a poetic introduction to Marguerite Young’s novel Angel in the Forest.
The reel-to-reel and cassette tapes were archived in the Marguerite Young Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The Library successfully retrieved and converted the originals to a digital format so that new generations can discover and appreciate the genius of Marguerite Young. Many thanks to David Weinstein, Managing Director, the staff at ArtOnAir, and to Charles Ruas for his invaluable help and guidance restoring the series which was originally made available by the Clocktower Productions website in 2012-2013.
The complete collection of Ruas’ “Reading Experiment” productions was archived in 2018 for the Charles Ruas Papers stored in the Princeton University Library. The series includes a reading by John Gardner and interviews with Allen Ginsberg, John Cage, Pablo Neruda among many others.
Thanks to Alan Frank in California who e-mailed the question to the Marguerite Young website that prompted the effort to access the Reading Series for online listeners.
Sent: Aug 19, 2010 10:36 AM
Subject: WBAI readings
Hello,
I read that Charles Ruas produced some readings from MMMD with many readers and music which was on WBAI radio years ago. Was that production recorded and could I get my hands on that or is it archived online somewhere?
thanks,
Alan Frank.
Charles Ruas’ 1977 interview with Marguerite Young published in The Paris Review can be accessed online The Art of Fiction No. 66. This interview concentrates on her writing, both Angel in the Forest and Miss Macintosh My Darling.
An original production of the play Harp Song for a Radical was performed by students at the University of Washington Meany Theater, Seattle, WA, in the fall of 2011. According to Director Jeffrey Fracé, the success of the show generated audience interest in the labor movement, current politics, and the work of Marguerite Young. There are good possibilities that the show will re-open in 2013. The ensemble was invited to perform the play at the 2012 Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. As some company members already had contracts to do other shows that summer, the hope is to perform the play at the 2013 Fringe Festival and also in a professional venue in Seattle. See a trailer to the production at https://vimeo.com/35174038
Enjoy the “Miss MacIntosh My Darling” song by Andrew Bunney, Australian songwriter:
Lyrics to the song are posted in Shared Memories, 02 October 2001.
Steven Moore has written a magnus opus, The Novel, An Alternative History of the Novel published by Continuum Press in April 2010, See the 2013 interview with Moore in Publisher’s Weekly. Also see Alberto Manguel’s Review of Steven Moore’s The Novel, An Alternative History of the Novel in the Washington Post, August 22, 2010. Steven shares his account of his publishing relationship with Marguerite Young when he was working for Dalkey Archive Press in the late 1980’s and 1990’s.
Two articles about Marguerite Young can be found in the Summer 2000 issue of The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Vol. XX, no.2. One is an overview essay on the life and work of Marguerite Young by Constance Eichenlaub, and the second is a biographical memoir by Bruce Kellner. This issue and previous issues can be ordered online. Bruce Kellner’s memoir of Marguerite Young is also included in a collection entitled Kiss Me Again: An Invitation to a Group of Noble Dames, published by Turtle Point Press.
The 1989 issue of The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Vol. 9.3, is devoted to Marguerite Young, Kathy Acker, and Christine Brooke-Rose.
A Wikipedia page about the author can be accessed here: Marguerite Young. For additional pictures, see Photo Gallery
The audio portions of this web site have been completed in part with the support of the Center for Advanced Research Technology in the Arts and Humanities (CARTAH) at the University of Washington. Thanks to the American Audio Prose Library for permission to use audio portions.
Thanks to Dalkey Archive Press for permission to quote passages from Miss MacIntosh My Darling.
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