Elizabeth Hardwick (1916-2007) was born in Lexington, Kentucky, and educated at the University of Kentucky and Columbia University. A recipient of a Gold Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she is the author of three novels, a biography of Herman Melville, and four collections of essays. She was a co-founder and advisory editor of
The New York Review of Books and contributed more than one hundred reviews, articles, reflections, and letters to the magazine. NYRB Classics publishes
Sleepless Nights, a novel, and
Seduction and Betrayal, a study of women in literature.
Geoffrey O'Brien's books include
The Browser's Ecstasy: A Meditation on Reading,
The Phantom Empire: Movies in the Mind of the Twentieth Century, and
Dream Time: Chapters from the Sixties.
He is editor in chief of the Library of America.