National Network for Equitable Library Service

Award-winning novelist Reynolds Price provides a vivid portrait of his life in the mid-1950s leading up to the publication of his first novel, A Long and Happy Life. After two earlier autobiographical works, Clear Pictures and A Whole New Life, Price offers a full account of his experiences from the mid-1950s to 1962. Oxford University and Britain, still recovering from the demands of World War II, were places of vitality for Price, both academically and personally. From spotting J. R. R. Tolkien in Oxford to intimate dinners with W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender, Price was welcomed into elite intellectual and artistic circles. Fully immersed in the culture of his time, he makes clear the connections between his experiences and the broader tradition of world literature. In lucid and frequently witty prose, Price grants full access to six years in his early adulthood—a gallery of portraits and personal discovery, woven into the great fabric of human accomplishment.