Editing Thomas Wolfe (section)

==Critical reception==
Upon publication of ''Look Homeward, Angel'', most reviewers responded favorably, including [[John Chamberlain (journalist)|John Chamberlain]], [[Carl Clinton Van Doren|Carl Van Doren]], and [[Stringfellow Barr]].<ref name="critical reception xx">{{cite book | title =  Thomas Wolfe, The Critical Reception
 | last = Reeves | first = Paschal | year = 1974 | orig-year = 1974 | publisher = Ayer Publishing | isbn =0-89102-050-0 | pages = xx – xxi }}</ref> Margaret Wallace wrote in ''[[The New York Times Book Review]]'' that Wolfe had produced "as interesting and powerful a book as has ever been made out of the drab circumstances of provincial American life".<ref name="nytimes 2000"/> An anonymous review published in ''Scribner's'' magazine compared Wolfe to [[Walt Whitman]], and many other reviewers and scholars have found similarities in their works since.<ref name="whitman clemson">{{cite web | title = Walt Whitman's and Thomas Wolfe's Treatment of the American Landscape | work = Valdosta University | url = http://www.valdosta.edu/note/web-content/archive/web-content/Old%20note%20website%20material/mccleary.htm | access-date = November 10, 2009 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120223053441/http://www.valdosta.edu/note/web-content/archive/web-content/Old%20note%20website%20material/mccleary.htm | archive-date = February 23, 2012 }}</ref>

When published in the UK in July 1930, the book received similar reviews. [[Richard Aldington]] wrote that the novel was "the product of an immense exuberance, organic in its form, kinetic, and drenched with the love of life...I rejoice over Mr. Wolfe".<ref name="mitchell 140">{{cite book | title = Thomas Wolfe: An Illustrated Biography | last = Mitchell | first = Ted | year = 2006 | publisher = Pegasus Books | isbn = 1-933648-10-4 | page = [https://archive.org/details/thomaswolfe00tedm/page/140 140] | url = https://archive.org/details/thomaswolfe00tedm/page/140 }}</ref> Both in his 1930 [[Nobel Prize for Literature]] acceptance speech and original press conference announcement, [[Sinclair Lewis]], the first American to win the Nobel Prize for literature, said of Wolfe, "He may have a chance to be the greatest American writer...In fact I don't see why he should not be one of the greatest world writers."<ref name="time of time">{{cite magazine | title =  Books: U. S. Voice
 | magazine = Time | date = March 12, 1935 | url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,883300,00.html | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20111222070554/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,883300,00.html | url-status = dead | archive-date = December 22, 2011 |url-access=subscription | access-date = November 10, 2009 }}</ref>

Upon publication of his second novel, ''Of Time and the River'', most reviewers and the public remained supportive, though some critics found shortcomings while still hailing it for moments or aspects of greatness.<ref name="critical reception xxii"/> The book was well received by the public and became his only American bestseller.<ref name="critical reception xxii"/> The publication was viewed as "the literary event of 1935"; by comparison, the earlier attention given to ''Look Homeward, Angel'' was modest.<ref name="critical reception xxiii">{{cite book | title =  Thomas Wolfe, The Critical Reception | last = Reeves | first = Paschal | year = 1974 | orig-year = 1974 | publisher = Ayer Publishing | isbn =0-89102-050-0 | page = xxiii }}</ref> Both ''The New York Times'' and ''[[New York Herald Tribune]]'' published enthusiastic front-page reviews.<ref name="critical reception xxiii"/> [[Clifton Fadiman]] wrote in ''The New Yorker'' that while he was not sure what he thought of the book, "for decades we have not had eloquence like his in American writing".<ref name="critical reception xxiii"/> Malcolm Cowley of ''[[The New Republic]]'' thought the book would be twice as good if half as long, but stated Wolfe was "the only contemporary writer who can be mentioned in the same breath as Dickens and Dostoevsky".<ref name="critical reception xxiii"/> [[Robert Penn Warren]] thought Wolfe produced some brilliant fragments from which "several fine novels might be written". He went on to say: "And meanwhile it may be well to recollect that Shakespeare merely wrote ''[[Hamlet]]''; he was ''not'' Hamlet."<ref name="critical reception xxiii"/> Warren also praised Wolfe in the same review, though, as did [[John Donald Wade]] in a separate review.<ref name="clemson">{{cite journal | last = Bradley | first = Patricia L. | title = Robert Penn Warren, Thomas Wolfe, and the Problem of Autobiography | url = http://cup.sites.clemson.edu/scr/volumes/facsimiles/scr-38n2.pdf | journal = [[The South Carolina Review]] | volume = 38 | issue = 2 | date = Spring 2006 | pages = 136–145 | access-date = May 27, 2018 | archive-date = May 27, 2018 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180527201337/http://cup.sites.clemson.edu/scr/volumes/facsimiles/scr-38n2.pdf | url-status = dead }}</ref>

Though he was acclaimed during his lifetime as one of the most important American writers, comparable to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, or William Faulkner,<ref name="southern journal"/> Wolfe's reputation as a writer was heavily criticized after his death.<ref name="nytimes 2000"/><ref name="southern journal"/> He was ridiculed by such prominent critics as Harold Bloom and James Wood.<ref name="wolfe fire">{{cite news | title = A House Restored, An Author Revisited; Thomas Wolfe Shrine Returns | work = The New York Times | date = June 5, 2003 | url = https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/05/arts/a-house-restored-an-author-revisited-thomas-wolfe-shrine-returns.html | access-date = November 11, 2009 | first = Ralph | last = Blumenthal}}</ref> At one time he was left out of college courses and anthologies devoted to great writers.<ref name="southern journal"/> Faulkner and [[W.J. Cash]] listed Wolfe as the ablest writer of their generation, although Faulkner later qualified his praise.<ref name="wj cash">{{cite news | title =  Immortality in Words: On Living Forever | work = The Charlotte News | date = October 16, 1938 | url = http://www.wjcash.org/WJCash1/Charlotte.News.Articles/LivingForever.htm | access-date = November 10, 2009 }}</ref> Despite his early admiration of Wolfe's work, Faulkner later decided that his novels were "like an elephant trying to do the hoochie-coochie". Ernest Hemingway's verdict was that Wolfe was "the over-bloated [[Li'l Abner]] of literature".<ref>Wetzsteon, Ross, ''Republic of Dreams Greenwich Village: The American Bohemia 1910–1960'', Simon & Schuster, 2003, p. 415</ref>

Twenty-first century scholars have largely rejected the overly negative criticism of Wolfe from the mid to late 20th century.<ref name="ENCY"/> This re-assessment of Wolfe began in the 1980s with writers like Leslie Fields whose entry on Wolfe in the ''[[Dictionary of Literary Biography]]'' (1981) was one of the earlier publications to provide a more thorough and positive assessment of Wolfe's short stories. From this point on, positive re-assessment began to grow and current assessment of Wolfe tends to be more balanced, with a greater appreciation of his experimentation with literary forms.<ref name="ENCY"/>  ''The Complete Short Stories of Thomas Wolfe'' was published in 1987, and his short stories were later published in several anthologies, including ''American Classics'' (1989, [[Marshall Cavendish]]), ''The American Short Story: A Treasury of the Memorable and Familiar, by the Great American Writers from Washington Irving to Saul Bellow'' (1994, State Street Press), ''Short Stories from the Old North State'' (2012, [[University of North Carolina Press]]), and ''Writing Appalachia: An Anthology'' (2020, [[University Press of Kentucky]]) among others. Wolfe is now read more widely in high school and college literature courses then previously.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Teaching Thomas Wolfe in the twenty-first century: a roundtable|first= Anne R.|last= Zahlan|journal= Thomas Wolfe Review|volume= 39|year=2015}}</ref> Today, [[William Faulkner]] and Wolfe are considered the two most important authors of the [[Southern Renaissance]] within the American literary canon.<ref name="Southern"/>