John Crowley
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John Crowley (born December 1, 1942 in Presque Isle, Maine) is an American author of science fiction, fantasy, and mainstream fiction. He studied at Indiana University and has a second career as a documentary film writer. He is best known as the author of the fantasy novel Little, Big (1981), which won the World Fantasy Award.
Crowley is the author of nine novels and two collections of short fiction. His first published novels were science fiction: The Deep (1975) and Beasts (1976). Engine Summer appeared in 1977 and was nominated for The American Book Award; it appears in David Pringle’s 100 Best Science Fiction Novels. In 1980 came Little, Big, which won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel and which Ursula LeGuin described as a book which “all by itself calls for a redefinition of fantasy.” In 1980 Crowley embarked on an ambitious multi-volume novel called Aegypt, of which three volumes have been published – Ægypt: The Solitudes, Love & Sleep, and Dæmonomania; the final volume is in preparation. This series and Little, Big were cited when Crowley received the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature. (He is also the recipient of an Ingram Merrill Foundation grant.) His recent novels are The Translator, recipient of the Premio Flaianno (Italy), and Lord Byron’s Novel: The Evening Land, which contains an entire imaginary novel by the poet.
Crowley’s short fiction is collected in three volumes: Novelty (containing the World Fantasy Award-winning novella Great Work of Time), Antiquities, and Novelties & Souvenirs, an omnibus volume containing almost all his short fiction (a new novella, The Girlhood of Shakespeare’s Heroines, will appear in 2005). A volume of essays and criticism will appear in 2006.
For much of his working life, Crowley has also worked in films and television, writing scripts for short films and documentaries, many historical documentaries for public television; his work has received numerous awards and has been shown at the New York Film Festival, the Berlin Film Festival, and many others. His scripts include The World of Tomorrow (the 1939 World's Fair), No Place to Hide (the bomb shelter obsession), The Hindenburg, and FIT: Episodes in the History of the Body (American fitness practices and beliefs over the decades; with Laurie Block). [Source: Yale University Web site]
Crowley's correspondence with literary critic Harold Bloom, and their mutual appreciation, led in 1993 to Crowley taking up a post at Yale University, where he began teaching courses in Utopian fiction, fiction writing, and screenplay writing. Bloom claimed on Contentville.com that Little, Big ranks among the five best novels by a living writer; he includes Little, Big, Ægypt, and Love and Sleep (sic) in his canon of literature.
Bibliography
Novels:
- The Deep (also see below), Doubleday (New York, NY), 1975.
- Beasts (also see below), Doubleday (New York, NY), 1976.
- Engine Summer (also see below), Doubleday (New York, NY), 1979.
- Little, Big, Bantam (New York, NY), 1981.
- Ægypt: The Solitudes (first novel in tetralogy), Bantam (New York, NY), 1987.
- Great Work of Time (novella), Bantam (New York, NY), 1991.
- Ægypt: Love and Sleep (second novel in tetralogy), Bantam (New York, NY), 1994.
- Three Novels, (contains The Deep, Beasts, and Engine Summer) Bantam (New York, NY), 1994.
- Ægypt: Daemonomania (third novel in tetralogy), Bantam (New York, NY), 2000.
- The Translator, Avon, 2002.
- Otherwise: Three Novels (contains The Deep, Beasts, and Engine Summer), Perennial (New York, NY), 2002.
- Lord Byron's Novel: The Evening Land, William Morrow (New York, NY), 2005.
Short stories:
- Novelty, Bantam (New York, NY), 1989.
- Antiquities: Seven Stories, Incunabula (Seattle, WA), 1993.
- Novelties and Souvenirs: Collected Short Fiction, Perennial (New York, NY), 2004.
- The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines, Subterranean Press, 2005
Other:
- World of Tomorrow (screenplay), 1989.
- Fit: Episodes in the History of the Body (screenplay), 1990.
Critical Work:
- Snake's-Hands: The Fiction of John Crowley, edited by Alice K. Turner and Michael Andre-Driussi, Cosmos, 2003