Steven Moore

Literary critic Steven Moore was an editor at Dalkey Archive Press during its early years (1988-1996) when it grew from a one-man operation to one of the most respected small presses in America. In part 1 of this brief memoir, he recounts how he joined the press, what he accomplished there, and why he left. This is followed by an annotated list of all the books Moore acquired, enlivened by behind-the-scene anecdotes, and concludes with short essays on certain particular authors. Dalkey Days is profusely illustrated with book covers, author photos, and rare Dalkey memorabilia. "Steven Moore has been at the vanguard of criticism and publication of outliers and explorers whose artistic visions reinvigorate the capacious form of the novel and the short story, and we are in his debt." —Jeff Bursey, NumÉro Cinq

A revelatory collection of correspondence by the lauded author of titanic American classics such as The Recognitions and J R, shedding light on his staunchly private life. Now recognized as one of the giants of postwar American fiction, William Gaddis shunned the spotlight during his life, which makes this collection of his letters a revelation. Beginning in 1930, when Gaddis was at boarding school, and ending in September 1998, a few months before his death, these letters function as a kind of autobiography and are all the more valuable because he was not an autobiographical writer. Here we see him forging his first novel, The Recognitions, while living in Mexico; fighting in a revolution in Costa Rica; and working in Spain, France, and North Africa. Over the next twenty years he struggles to find time to write the National Book Award-winning J R amid the complications of work and family; deals with divorce and disillusionment before reviving his career with Carpenter's Gothic; then teaches himself enough about the law to indite A Frolic of His Own, which earned him another National Book Award. Returning to a topic he first wrote about in the 1940s, he finishes his last novel, Agapē Agape, as he is dying.

As a soldier and civilian, Steven Moore has traveled from the American Midwest to Afghanistan and beyond. In those travels, he's seen what place can mean, specifically rural places, and how it follows us, changes us. What Moore has to say about rural places speaks to anyone who has driven a lonely road at night, with nothing but darkness as a cushion between them and the emptiness that surrounds. Place and how we define it—and how it defines us—is a through line throughout the collection of eleven essays. Moore writes about where we come from and the disconnection we often feel between each other: between veterans and nonveterans, between people of different political beliefs, between regions, between eras. These pieces build into a contemplative whole, one that is a powerful meditation on why where we come from means something and how we'll always bring where we are with us, no matter where we go.

Love is in the air, but so is something else . . . In this third installment of the Mobile Writers Guild anthology series, our members celebrate the traditional romantic aspect of Valentine's Day with sweet and funny stories of hearts, flowers, and kisses, but they also explore the darkness that surrounds the day with a few tales of intrigue, madness, and murder.

This book is a sampler of art and stories by artist/writer Steven Moore.It includes The Blood-tied Stone, a complete story from the first Runes & Realms book, Gnome Legends and The Timeless Crystal, from the first Timeless Crystal book, The Time Machine. Also included is a portfolio of original line art by Steven Moore.The Blood-tied Stone - A powerful wizard joins a young apprentice on her quest to find her family's blood-tied stone-a magical item only her family can use.The Timeless Crystal - A time traveler from the 1890's finds herself in a magical world filled with gnomes, elves, strange creatures and danger.

Winner of the 2014 Christian Gauss Award for excellence in literary scholarship from the Phi Beta Kappa SocietyHaving excavated the world’s earliest novels in his previous book, literary historian Steven Moore explores in this sequel the remarkable flowering of the novel between the years 1600 and 1800—from Don Quixote to America’s first big novel, an homage to Cervantes entitled Modern Chivalry. This is the period of such classic novels as Tom Jones, Candide, and Dangerous Liaisons, but beyond the dozen or so recognized classics there are hundreds of other interesting novels that appeared then, known only to specialists: Spanish picaresques, French heroic romances, massive Chinese novels, Japanese graphic novels, eccentric English novels, and the earliest American novels. These minor novels are not only worthy of attention in their own right, but also provide the context needed to appreciate why the major novels were major breakthroughs. The novel experienced an explosive growth spurt during these centuries as novelists experimented with different forms and genres: epistolary novels, romances, Gothic thrillers, novels in verse, parodies, science fiction, episodic road trips, and family sagas, along with quirky, unclassifiable experiments in fiction that resemble contemporary, avant-garde works. As in his previous volume, Moore privileges the innovators and outriders, those who kept the novel novel. This sequel, like its predecessor, is a “zestfully encyclopedic, avidly opinionated, and dazzlingly fresh history of the most ‘elastic’ of literary forms” (Booklist).

The war in Afghanistan creates an urgency for telling stories—between soldiers, as they hand off missions to each other, and between soldiers and civilians, trying to explain what is going on—while also denying a lot of the context that is important for the telling of that story. The landscape is so mountainous and isolating that one incident or anecdote might not fit into a bigger picture beyond itself. A patrol may have no effect on the one that comes next. The war has ground itself into such a stasis that it is hard to see movement or plot. Yet we’re there. We have to say something. We have to be accountable, even though the circumstances complicate the ability to talk about it while simultaneously creating a constant yearning to do so.The Longer We Were There follows a part-time soldier’s experience over seven years in the Iowa Army National Guard. He enlists at seventeen into the infantry, then bounces between college classes, army training, disaster relief, civilian jobs, a deployment in Afghanistan—first on the Afghan-Pakistani border, then into a remote valley in the Hindu Kush Mountains—and finally comes home. His stories are about having one foot on each side of the civilian-military divide, the difficulty of describing one side to those on the other, and how, as a consequence of this difficulty, that divide gets replicated within the self.

In an enchanted world filled with magical creatures, a young gnome king along with those sworn to protect him fight to reclaim the kingdom's lost crown and bring stability back to the realm.

At 7.30am on 1st July 1916, some 60,000 men climbed out of their trenches and walked across No-Man's-Land and into the history books. The Battle of the Somme, which was to rage for another four and a half months, would ultimately involve every Irish battalion on the Western Front. For some, such as the 36th (Ulster) Division which sustained some 5,000 casualties in just 24 hours, the slaughter left them so weakened that they had to be withdrawn. For others their participation went on for weeks until attrition wore them down. Today the Somme is at peace, though the First World War hasn't been forgotten. Dotted across its tranquil landscape are memorials to the Irish dead, many of whom lie in the cemeteries clustered around the old front lines. Re-issued to commemorate the 100th anniversary, Steven Moore's 'The Irish on the Somme' puts the contribution of the men of Ireland, north and south, unionist and nationalist, into context. It takes the reader through the conflict, from the declaration of war in August 1914, to the Second Battle of the Somme and the final push to victory, then on to the monuments and cemeteries, the tangible proof of Ireland's part in the war to end all wars. This is an invaluable guide for the armchair enthusiast and those visiting the battlefields.

In 1989, Steven Moore published the first scholarly study of all three of William Gaddis's novels and since then it has been generally regarded as the best book on this difficult but major writer's work. This revised and expanded edition includes new chapters on the novels Gaddis published after 1989, the National Book Award-winning A Frolic of His Own and the posthumous novella Agape Agape, along with updated introductory and concluding chapters. This introduction offers a clear discussion of all five of Gaddis's novels, providing essential biographical information, two chapters each on his most significant novels, The Recognitions and J R, and a chapter each devoted to his later three novels. A concluding chapter locates his place in American literature and notes his influence on younger writers. Each chapter focuses on the main themes of each novel and discusses the literary techniques Gaddis deployed to dramatize those themes. Since Gaddis is an erudite, allusive novelist, Moore clarifies his references and explains how they enhance his themes.

In 1989, Steven Moore published the first scholarly study of all three of William Gaddis's novels and since then it has been generally regarded as the best book on this difficult but major writer's work. This revised and expanded edition includes new chapters on the novels Gaddis published after 1989, the National Book Award-winning A Frolic of His Own and the posthumous novella Agape Agape, along with updated introductory and concluding chapters. This introduction offers a clear discussion of all five of Gaddis's novels, providing essential biographical information, two chapters each on his most significant novels, The Recognitions and J R, and a chapter each devoted to his later three novels. A concluding chapter locates his place in American literature and notes his influence on younger writers. Each chapter focuses on the main themes of each novel and discusses the literary techniques Gaddis deployed to dramatize those themes. Since Gaddis is an erudite, allusive novelist, Moore clarifies his references and explains how they enhance his themes.

This title tells a comprehensive history - and controversial reappraisal - of the world's most popular and innovative literary form. Encyclopedic in scope and heroically audacious, "The Novel: An Alternative History" is the first attempt in over a century to tell the complete story of our most popular literary form. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the novel did not originate in 18th-century England, nor even with Don Quixote, but is coeval with civilization itself. After a pugnacious introduction, in which Moore defends innovative, demanding novelists against their conservative critics, the book relaxes into a world tour of the premodern novel, beginning in ancient Egypt and ending in 16th-century China, with many exotic ports-of-call: Greek romances; Roman satires; medieval Sanskrit novels narrated by parrots; Byzantine erotic thrillers; 5000-page Arabian adventure novels; Icelandic sagas; delicate Persian novels in verse; Japanese war stories; even Mayan graphic novels. Throughout, Moore celebrates the innovators in fiction, tracing a continuum between these premodern experimentalists and their postmodern progeny. Irreverent, iconoclastic, informative, entertaining - "The Novel: An Alternative History" is a landmark in literary criticism that will encourage readers to rethink the novel.