Jeffrey Meyers Explained

Jeffrey Meyers
Birth Date:April 1, 1939
Birth Place:New York City, New York, U.S.
Alma Mater:University of Michigan
Occupation:Biographer; critic: modern literature, art, film
Known For:Lives of Ernest Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, Edmund Wilson, D. H. Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, George Orwell
Spouse:Valerie Meyers
Children:Rachel

Jeffrey Meyers (born 1 April 1939 in New York City) is an American biographer and literary, art, and film critic.

He currently lives in Berkeley, California.

Life

Jeffrey Meyers was born in New York City in 1939 and grew up in New York. He was an undergraduate at the University of Michigan and earned his doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley. He taught at UCLA (1963–65), for the Far East Division of the University of Maryland in Japan (1965–66), and Tufts University (1967–71), and then spent time writing in London and Málaga, Spain (1971–75) before teaching at the University of Colorado from 1975 to 1992. He has been a visiting professor at the universities of Kent and Massachusetts, Jemison Professor at the University of Alabama and Visiting Scholar at Berkeley. He has won three Colorado Research Awards (two in 1976, one in 1988) and two Faculty Fellowships (1986 and 1991) as well as Huntington Library (1971), Fulbright (1978–79), ACLS (1983–84) and Guggenheim grants (1978–79). Since 1992 he's been a professional writer in Berkeley, California. In 1983 Meyers became one of 12 Americans who are Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature, and in 2005 received an Award in Literature "to honor exceptional achievement" from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

As of 2018, Meyers has published 54 books and 980 articles on art, film, and modern American, English, and European literature. His wide range of interests include bibliography, editing, literary criticism, and biography. He is a specialist in archival research and published the FBI file on Ernest Hemingway,[1] love letters by Hemingway,[2] and literary manuscripts by Wyndham Lewis, Ezra Pound, and Roy Campbell. Meyers has had 33 works translated into 14 languages and is sometimes referenced as a "serial biographer"[3] due to his prolific biographic output.

His manuscripts are in the University of Tulsa, University of Texas at Austin, Huntington Library in Los Angeles, Harvard University, University of Virginia, and John F. Kennedy libraries. He has lectured at 70 universities. He has been interviewed many times and has appeared in documentary films about Edgar Allan Poe,[4] Gary Cooper,[5] and Errol Flynn,[6] and BBC-TV programs on Hemingway[7] and D. H. Lawrence.[8] He has spoken on television about his literary discoveries on CBS Morning News[9] and about Orwell on C-Span's Booknotes.[10] In 2012 he gave the Seymour Lectures in Biography at the National Library of Australia in Canberra, Melbourne, and Sydney.

Personal life

Jeffrey Meyers married Valerie Froggatt in 1965. Their daughter Rachel was born in 1972 and has given them two grandchildren.Besides writing, Meyers' interests include collecting books, tennis, seeking silence, and avoiding boredom.He currently resides in Berkeley, California.

Education

Career

Publications

Biographies

Literary criticism

Bibliographies

Edited collections

Edited collections of original essays

Edited letters

Introductions to books

Awards

Honors

Literary accolades of Meyers' Hemingway: A Biography

Anthony Powell[38] and Anthony Burgess praised Meyers' Hemingway: A Biography.[39] Tom Stoppard chose it as the "Best Book of the Year" in 1986.[40] In America, the poet James Dickey noted: "Meyers has given us an extremely valuable deepening of what is quite likely to prove Hemingway's greatest work, his life."[41] The National Book Award winner J. F. Powers said: "This is simply the best book there is on Hemingway, thorough, perceptive, no holds barred, highly entertaining, so good and right on the famous writer and also on the famous performer who acted from the All-American hope that what goes up may not come down, but did, in this case, tragically."[42] George Painter, the distinguished biographer of Marcel Proust, wrote: "I believe that Professor Meyers' Hemingway is one of the great biographies of our half-century, a masterwork in which true scholarship and creative art are so united as to become indistinguishable, and worthy to belong with Richard Ellmann's James Joyce, [Leslie] Marchand's Byron or Michael Holroyd's Lytton Strachey. Ellmann's passing has been universally mourned; but one can at least feel that the world now has a new major biographer."[43]

Selected bibliography on Jeffrey Meyers

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: NY Times. March 11, 1983. Publishing F.B.I. File on Hemingway.
  2. Web site: Wilson Quarterly. Winter 2011. Papa's Painful Passion.
  3. Web site: UC Berkeley California Magazine. 2009. 5 Questions: Serial biographer Jeffrey Meyers.
  4. Poe: Tales of Terror, Discovery-Learning Channel Television, January 22, 2001.
  5. Biography A&E Television, June 23, 1997.
  6. Lowlands Media, Australian television documentary, March 23, 2006.
  7. BBC Omnibus, July 1987.
  8. News: Channel 4. London. Dark Horses. July 27, 1992.
  9. CBS Morning News, March 28, 1983.
  10. C-Span, Booknotes, 2001.
  11. News: Indian edition: Calcutta: Rupa, 1979. Danish serialization: Copenhagen: Søndags Berlingske Tidende, November 2, 9, 16, 1978. Reprint: London: Southbank; North Pomfret, Vermont: Trafalgar Square, 2005. Book Club Associates. Hungarian translation: Budapest: Alexandra Publishing, 2006..
  12. News: 2nd printing 1980. Auckland: Hodder & Stoughton, 1979. Biography Book Club. Italian translation: Milano: Rusconi, 1982. Paperback edition, 1983. Reprint: New York and London: Cooper Square, 2002..
  13. News: Paperback edition, 1982. Nominated for Duff Cooper Prize..
  14. News: Paperback editions: American 1986; English 1987. Reprint: New York and London: Da Capo, 1999. "Best Book of the Year": Tom Stoppard, Observer (London), November 30, 1986, p. 21. Talking Book for the Blind: New York, 1987. French translation: Paris: Pierre Belfond, 1987, Montreal: Edipress,1987. Chinese translation: Beijing: Zhuo Yue Publishing Co., 1990. Hebrew translation: Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1991. Korean translation: Seoul: Choek Se Sang [Book World], 2003. Bulgarian translation: Sofia: Riva, 2010..
  15. News: Paperback editions: Vintage Books, 1992; Papermac, 1993. New York and London: Cooper Square, 2002. French translation: Paris: Table Ronde, 1992..
  16. News: Reader's Subscription Book Club. Softback Preview Book Club. Korean translation: Seoul: Book World, 1999. Paperback edition: New York and London: Cooper Square, 2002..
  17. News: Nominated for "Edgar" by Mystery Writers of America. Paperback edition: New York and London: Cooper Square, 2000. New York: HarperCollins, 2014..
  18. News: Book-of-the-Month Club alternate. Quality Paperback Book selection. Book Club Associates (UK) selection. Blackstone Audio. "Best Books of 1994," Publishers Weekly, November 7, 1994, p. 43. Paperback editions: London: Papermac, 1995; New York and London: Cooper Square, 2000; New York: HarperCollins, 2014. Portuguese translation: José Olympia, 1996..
  19. News: "Best Books of 1995," Publishers Weekly, November 6, 1995, pp. 66, 71; "Best Book of the Year," Francis King, Spectator, November 18, 1995, p. 48; "Notable Books of the Year," New York Times Book Review, May 7, 1995, p 42, June 11, p.20 and December 3, p. 70. Paperback edition: New York and London: Cooper Square, 2003. Talking Book for the Blind: New York, 1997..
  20. News: Books on Tape Audio. Paperback edition: Boston: Mariner, 1997.
  21. News: Movie-Entertainment Book Club alternate selection. German translation: Berlin: Henschel, 1998. Paperback edition: New York: Fromm, 1999..
  22. News: Reader's Digest condensed book in America, England and Australia, 1998-1999. Eagle Book Club, 1999. President Clinton, on "Roger Ebert and the Movies," February 5, 2000, called it "a fascinating biography of Cooper, really interesting and a great book." Paperback editions: New York: Cooper Square, 2001; London: Robert Hale, 2002; London: Aurum, 2005. Spanish translation: Madrid: T&B Editores, 2001. Serialized in Daily Express (London), 18, 19 and 20 April 2001; and Star (US), 8 May 2001, pp. 46-47.
  23. News: Paperback edition: Madison and London, 2001. Reprinted 2003..
  24. News: Serialized in Globe and Mail (Toronto), October 28, 2000, pp. D3-D-4. Paperback edition: New York and London: Norton, 2001. Spanish translation: Barcelona: Ediciones B, 2002; Buenos Aires: Javier Vergara, 2003. Chinese translation: Beijing: People's Publishing House, 2003 and Beijing: New Star Press, 2017. Estonian translation: Tallinn: Varrak Publishing House, 2005. Hungarian translation: Budapest: Európa Könyvkiadó, 2007..
  25. News: Book-of-the-Month Club alternate. Bookspan Book Club. Direct Brands Book Club..
  26. News: Reader's Subscription Book Club. "Best Books of the Year": Christian Science Monitor, November 23, 2004. Bookspan Book Club..
  27. News: Readers' Subscription Book Club. Korean translation: Seoul: Maumsanchaek, 2006. Chinese translation: Guilin: Guangxi Normal University Press, 2008..
  28. News: "Best Books of the Year": Christian Science Monitor, November 2006. Paperback edition: London, Duckworth, 2008. Chinese translation: Nanjing: Nanjing University Press, 2009..
  29. News: Runner-up for the PEN-Weld Award for Biography..
  30. News: Paperback edition: London: Arrow, 2010; Urbana: Illinois, 2012. Spanish translation: Barcelona: Babel, 2010. Portuguese translation: Lisbon: Bizancia, 2010. Greek translation: Athens: Psichogios, 2010. Talking Book for the Blind, 2011..
  31. News: Book-of-the-Month Club alternate. Paperback edition: New York: Crown Archetype, 2012. Bookspan Book Club. "Top 10 Biographies," Booklist, 1 and 15 June 2012..
  32. News: 2nd ed., revised and enlarged. London: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin's, 1989.
  33. News: Paperback editions: English, 1975; American, 1977. Reprinted 1978, 1984. Japanese translation: Tokyo: Sairyusha, 1988.
  34. News: Paperback edition, 1975. Japanese translation: Tokyo: Hakusuisha, 1980.
  35. News: Paperback edition: 1987. Reprinted: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
  36. News: Paperback edition: 1986.
  37. News: Paperback edition: 2010. Chinese translation: Beijing: Economic Science Press, 2014.
  38. Anthony Powell, Daily Telegraph, March 27, 1986, p. 7..
  39. Anthony Burgess, Observer, March 26, 1986, p, 26..
  40. Tom Stoppard, "Best Book of the Year: Hemingway," Observer (London), 30 November 1986, p. 21..
  41. Book: Hemingway: A Biography. New York: Harper & Row, 1985. James Dickey, quote on dust jacket..
  42. Book: Hemingway: A Biography. New York: Harper & Row, 1985. J. F. Powers, quote on dust jacket..
  43. George Painter, Letter to Distinguished Professor Committee, University of Colorado, June 14, 1988. Copy in Meyers' personal archive..
  44. News: Also in Magill's Literary Annual, 1985. Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1986. Pp. 406-410..
  45. Reprinted in American Fictions. New York: Modern Library, 1999. Pp. 308-319..