num_pages: 116
description: Although Lionel Trilling is best known as a critic of literature and society, the fact that he was also a distinguished writer of fiction is attested to by the enduring reputation of his novel, The Middle of the Journey. First published in 1947, it attained to the status of a classic even in his lifetime. Now his achievement in the field of fiction is further supported by the publication, for the first time in book form, of five of his early stories.The volume takes its title from the deeply moving novelette "Of This Time, of That Place." Widely anthologized, this story is generally acknowledged to be one of the masterpieces of modern short fiction. "The Other Margaret" has also been reprinted in leading collections of contemporary stories.The three other stories gathered here bring new evidence of their author's early talent for fiction. "Impediments" was written while Lionel Trilling was still an undergraduate at Columbia, and "Notes on a Departure" dates from his first teaching assignment, at the University of Wisconsin. Both of these stories were produced with The Menorah Journal expressly in mind. This was a magazine of Jewish thought in which many of Lionel Trilling's gifted college contemporaries had their first publication. "The Lesson and the Secret," written in the early Forties, was originally a chapter in a never-completed novel.In addition to their interest as works of the imagination, these stories, especially when they are brought into conjunction with each other, make a striking contribution to our knowledge of the impact upon a sensitive intelligence of the various styles of feeling which prevailed at various periods in their author's lifetime, not only the attitude toward the mentally ill, as demonstrated in "Of This Time, of That Place," but also toward racial, religious and economic minorities as revealed in the other stories. - From Backflap
language: English
title: Of this time, of that place, and other stories
titlecomplete: Of this time, of that place, and other stories (The Works of Lionel Trilling)
genres: Literary Fiction, Fiction, Short Stories
ratings_count: 44
publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich