Bess of Hardwick rose from humble beginnings to become one of the richest women of the Tudor age.

So wrote author and cultural critic William Deresiewicz in “The Quality to be Tragic,” his sharp and insightful essay about Elizabeth Hardwick. Deresiewicz is a writer and thinker I admire, and after ...

In 1973, Darryl Pinckney, “a black guy from Columbia across the street,” talked his way into Elizabeth Hardwick’s famed Barnard College writing class. “Come Back in September” is his evocative, ...

When I was young and still working in book publishing, a rare and generous boss took note. “If you want to write,” he said, “you must read Elizabeth Hardwick. ‘Seduction and Betrayal.’” After work I ...

The National Book Award winner smuggles profound reflections on pain and loss into novels of deceptive lightness. By Wyatt Mason In addition to her prizewinning writing, she was known for editing the ...

A VIEW OF MY OWN (214 pp.)—Elizabeth Hardwick—Farrar, Straus & Cudahy ($4.50). Good female prose, if properly clipped of gush, has the kind of alert precision that makes most masculine sentences seem ...

When I was young and still working in book publishing, a rare and generous boss took note. “If you want to write,” he said, “you must read Elizabeth Hardwick. ‘Seduction and Betrayal.’” After work I ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. I was 24; I was living in New York. I went to parties and Joan Didion was standing there; I answered the phone and it was Bill ...