Elizabeth Hardwick

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Elizabeth Hardwick (July 27, 1916 – December 2, 2007) was an American literary critic, novelist, and short story writer. She was one of the founders of The New York Review of Books and the author of The Ghostly Lover (1945), The Simple Truth (1955), Seduction and Betrayal (1974), and Sleepless Nights (1979). In the '70s and early '80s, Hardwick taught writing seminars at Barnard College and Columbia University's School of the Arts, Writing Division. She gave forthright critiques of student writing and was a mentor to students she considered promising. In 1959, Hardwick published in Harper's, "The Decline of Book Reviewing," a generally harsh and even scathing critique of book reviews published in American periodicals of the time. A New York newspaper strike during 1962 and 1963 helped inspire Hardwick, Robert Lowell, Jason Epstein, Barbara Epstein, and Robert B. Silvers to publish The New York Review of Books, an experiment that became as much a habit for many readers as The New York Times Book Review, which Hardwick had eviscerated in her 1959 essay.

Hardwick was born in Lexington, Kentucky, and graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1939. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1947. From 1949 to 1972 she was married to the poet Robert Lowell; they had a child, Harriet Lowell, together.