James Gould Cozzens
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James Gould Cozzens (August 13, 1903 - August 8, 1978) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning U.S. novelist. He is often grouped today with his contemporaries John O'Hara and John P. Marquand, but his work has generally been considered more challenging and less entertaining than theirs. He was critically acclaimed from the beginning, but did not become a truly popular writer until later in his career.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Cozzens won a 1936 O. Henry Award for his short story "Total Stranger" published in the Saturday Evening Post on February 15, 1936.
Cozzens' first novel, "Confusion," was published while he was still a student at Harvard. Other early novels include S.S. San Pedro (1931), The Last Adam (1933), Ask Me Tomorrow (1941) and The Just and the Unjust (1942). During World War II, Cozzens served in the Army Air Corps stateside, and subsequently used his experiences with the military hierarchy for the basis of his 1948 novel Guard of Honor, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1949. His 1957 novel By Love Possessed became a surprise runaway bestseller, landing the author on the cover of Time magazine; the novel was also very loosely adapted into a film in 1961 starring Lana Turner. Cozzens' last novel, Morning, Noon and Night, was published in 1968.
The characters in Cozzens' novels are primarily professional, middle-class white men--a doctor in 'The Last Adam', a lawyer in By Love Possessed, for example--who confront issues such as duty and ethics in their careers while at the same time attempting to reconcile these with the emotional demands of their personal lives.
[edit] Selected works
- 1924 Confusion
- 1928 Cock Pit
- 1929 The Son of Perdition
- 1931 S.S. San Pedro
- 1933 The Last Adam
- 1936 Men and Brethren
- 1940 Ask Me Tomorrow
- 1942 The Just and the Unjust
- 1948 Guard of Honor
- 1957 By Love Possessed
- 1968 Morning, Noon, and Night
Works about James Gould Cozzens
The Novels of James Gould Cozzens Frederick Bracher Harcourt Brace 1959
James Gould Cozzens, A Life Apart Matthew J. Bruccoli Harcourt Brace 1983
James Gould Cozzens, A Time of War, Air Force Diaries and Pentagon Memos 1943-45 Edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli Harvard University 1984
James Gould Cozzens A Descriptive Bibliography Matthew J. Bruccoli University of Pittsburgh Press 1981
James Gould Cozzens A Checklist Compiled by James B. Merriwether Matthew J. Bruccoli and C.E. Frazer Clark 1972