Glenway Wescott

Glenway Wescott was a successful writer of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. He wrote poetry as a teenager and as a young man, while working in Chicago for Poetry Magazine. Living abroad in Paris and other European cities exposed Wescott to various writers and patrons, including Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein, who influenced his work and lifestyle.

Wescott's early novel, The Grandmothers: A Family Portrait, and his collection of stories, Goodbye, Wisconsin, are both autobiographical works describing the author's Midwestern childhood. In addition, he explores his family history and the decisions and struggles facing him as he moved away from his rural roots in the confines of Wisconsin society. Later works, such as The Pilgrim Hawk, concern his life abroad between the two world wars. His best-selling novel, Apartment in Athens, describes the tension of a German soldier living with a Greek family in Athens during German occupation. Wescott's last works are all non-fiction, mostly collections of earlier journals and letters detailing the lives of his colleagues, such as Katherine Anne Porter, Isak Dinesen, Thomas Mann, and Thornton Wilder.

Education and Training
University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinios, 1917-1919

Teachers and Influences
Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Margaret Anderson (founder of Little Review literary magazine), Harriet Monroe (founder of Poetry Magazine), Monroe Wheeler (lifelong friend and publisher), Jean Cocteau, Ezra Pound, Henry Miller
Literary influences include: Somerset Maugham, Colette, Ford Madox Ford

Connection to Bucks County
Wescott was a resident of Stockton-Rosemont, New Jersey, from 1959 to 1987. He lived on Mulhacaway Farm. His brother Lloyd and Lloyd's wife Barbara Harrison Wescott owned the property, which they had bought from Paul Whiteman. Glenway's house was called Hay Meadow.

Colleagues and Affiliations
Wescott chose Hugh Ford to be his biographer.
Monroe Wheeler, Edmund Schiddel, Katherine Anne Porter, Josephine Herbst, Paul Cadmus (painter)
Architect William Hunt, who did the remodeling of Mulhacaway Farm when the Wescotts bought the farm from Paul Whiteman

Nonfiction
Elizabeth Madox Roberts: A Personal Note, 1930
The Best of All Possible Worlds: Journals, Letters, and Remembrances, 1914-1937, 1975

Novels and Short Stories
The Apple of the Eye, 1924
. . . Like a Lover, 1926
The Grandmothers: A Family Portrait, 1927
Goodbye, Wisconsin, 1928
The Babe's Bed, 1930
A Calendar of Saints for Unbelievers, 1932
The Pilgrim Hawk: A Love Story, 1940
Images of Truth: Remembrances and Criticisms, 1962

Poetry
The Bitterns: A Book of Twelve Poems, 1920
Natives of the Rock: XX Poems, 1921-1928

Criticism and Essays
Fear and Trembling, 1932

Major Dance Performances
Author of The Dream of Audubon, ballet libretto

Teaching and Professional Appointments
Council Member, Authors Guild of the Authors League of America
American Academy of Arts and Letters
National Institute of Arts and Letters (president 1959-1962)

Major Awards
Harper Prize for The Grandmothers: A Family Portrait, 1963
Doctorate of Literature (honorary), Rutgers University, 1963