James Gould Cozzens

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James Gould Cozzens

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition | 2008 | The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright 2008 Columbia University Press. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

James Gould Cozzens , 1903-78, American novelist, b. Chicago. His novels usually concern upper-middle-class professional men who are faced with moral dilemmas that require compromising their ideals. All Cozzens's works are characterized by meticulous craftsmanship and an objective, almost clinical style. His novels include The Last Adam (1933), The Just and the Unjust (1942), Guard of Honor (1948; Pulitzer Prize), By Love Possessed (1957), and Morning, Noon, and Night (1968).

Bibliography: See biography by M. J. Bruccoli (1981).

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Cozzens, James Gould

The Oxford Companion to American Literature | 1995 | | © The Oxford Companion to American Literature 1995, originally published by Oxford University Press 1995. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Cozzens, James Gould (1903–78), born in Chicago but reared on Staten Island and educated at Harvard (1922–24), where he wrote his first novel, Confusion (1924), the story of an aristocratic, rebellious French girl. Leaving college to become a tutor in Cuba, he wrote Michael Scarlett (1925), a historical romance, and gathered background for Cock Pit (1928), set on a Cuban sugar plantation, and The Son of Perdition (1929), about a despotic American company official in Cuba. His more mature work begins with the novelette S.S. San Pedro (1931), based on the mysterious sinking of the Vestris, followed by The Last Adam (1933), published in England as A Cure of Flesh, introducing a representative Cozzens figure and setting in the story of a crusty, heterodox doctor in a rigid Connecticut town. Castaway (1934) is an atypical fantasy, presenting, with seeming realism, New York after a disaster that leaves the sole surviving man wandering in a great department store. The most characteristic novels begin with Men and Brethren (1936), a study of a liberal clergyman; Ask Me Tomorrow (1940), about an American in Europe; and The Just and The Unjust (1942), about a murder trial, for they deal with mature professional men in a stratified society who are called upon to resolve a conflict between the ideal and the possible and who acquiesce in the way things are, without complete loss of principle. This point of view and the tone of detached disenchantment appear most markedly in Guard of Honor (1948, Pulitzer Prize), about the clash between human and military values at an air force base in World War II; and By Love Possessed (1957), depicting a lawyer, one of the men of reason, and his involvements in love. Cozzens's last novel, Morning, Noon, and Night (1968), in presenting the recollections of one man in his sixties also gives a sense of upper‐middle‐class New England life in the 20th century. Children and Others (1964) collects stories, half of them about boys'r views of their teachers, parents, and other adults.

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James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "Cozzens, James Gould." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. Oxford University Press. 1995. Encyclopedia.com. 26 Dec. 2009 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "Cozzens, James Gould." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. Oxford University Press. 1995. Encyclopedia.com. (December 26, 2009). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O123-CozzensJamesGould.html

James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "Cozzens, James Gould." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. Oxford University Press. 1995. Retrieved December 26, 2009 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O123-CozzensJamesGould.html

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Free newspaper and magazine articles

Free Article Truth without bullets.(Reconsiderations)(James Gould Cozzens's Guard of Honor)
Magazine article from: National Review; 10/5/2009
Free Article Selected notebooks: 1960-1967.
Magazine article from: National Review; 2/28/1986
Free Article Misanthrope's Corner.(Al Gore's presidential campaign)(Brief Article)(Column)
Magazine article from: National Review; 7/31/2000

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Truth without bullets.(Reconsiderations)(James Gould Cozzens's Guard of Honor)
Magazine article from: National Review; 10/5/2009; ; 700+ words ; ...to which I return regularly is James Gould Cozzens's Guard of Honor. If you...Guard of Honor after reading "By Cozzens Possessed" is to wonder whether...possibly have had some other James Gould Cozzens in mind. Guard of Honor is almost...
James Gould Cozzens: A Documentary Volume.(Book Review)
Magazine article from: Hollins Critic; 6/1/2004; ; 634 words ; James Gould Cozzens: A Documentary Volume. Edited by Matthew...written on Karl Shapiro, Isaac Rosenfeld, James Purdy, Gordon Lish, William Gass...a request for reprinting material on Cozzens. Yes, Cozzens! Did I really admire...
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Magazine article from: Commonweal; 8/13/1993; ; 700+ words ; ...have made an almost too perfect model for a novel by James Gould Cozzens, were not that benighted soul himself already dead...Ursus, there was irony here and the materials for James Gould Cozzens, author of Guard of Honor, the last, if not actually...
Selected notebooks: 1960-1967.
Magazine article from: National Review; 2/28/1986; ; 586 words ; ...MATTHEW BRUCCOLI'S 1983 biography James Gould Cozzens: A Life Apart contained a lengthy...excerpts from a set of notebooks Cozzens began keeping three years after...journal entries revealed the real Cozzens--stoic, sardonic, full of...
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Newspaper article from: The Washington Post; 2/11/1990; 700+ words ; ...works. BRIAN G. GILMORE Washington Kissing Cozzens I AM saddened that the name of James Gould Cozzens seldom seems to crop up in discussions of...belongs at American literature's head table. Cozzens combined erudition with a superb narrative...
By O'Hara besotted. (writer John O'Hara)
Magazine article from: American Scholar; 9/22/1997; ; 700+ words ; ...Dwight Macdonald demolished the cult of James Gould Cozzens in his spectacular Commentary essay, "By Cozzens Possessed," occasioned by the excited reaction to Cozzens's By Love Possessed (1957), I felt...
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Newspaper article from: The Washington Post; 4/2/1989; 700+ words ; ...road in search of himself. Men and Brethren , by James Gould Cozzens (Ivan R. Dee, $7.95). Remembered today primarily...the Army Air Force in Florida during World War II, James Gould Cozzens was a master craftsman, ever curious about the details...
The Flinn Saga: Caricatured Characters
Newspaper article from: The Washington Post; 5/26/1997; ; 700+ words ; ...utterly improbable mixture of Danielle Steel and James Gould Cozzens. The first, the reigning queen of romance novelists...much with us. The second is all but forgotten. Yet James Gould Cozzens wrote, in "Guard of Honor," published in 1948...
MAGAZINE REMEMBERS BEST BOOKS OF 1957.(DAYBREAK)
Newspaper article from: Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, WI); 11/10/2003; ; 568 words ; ...selling novel in 1957 was "By Love Possessed" by James Gould Cozzens. The best-selling non-fiction title was "Kids...sellers: Fiction 1. "By Love Possessed," by James Gould Cozzens 2. "Peyton Place," by Grace Metaliopus 3...
Peter Taylor's Long-Overdue Pulitzer
Newspaper article from: The Washington Post; 4/20/1987; ; 700+ words ; ...1949 Pulitzer for fiction went to James Gould Cozzens, for "Guard of Honor." Taylor...1978 Pulitzer for fiction went to James Alan McPherson, for "Elbow Room...Pulitzers, there are some good ones (Cozzens, O'Neill, McMurtry) and some...

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