This volume contains four novels by Mary McCarthy, The Company She Keeps (1942), The Oasis (1949), The Groves of Academe (1952), and A Charmed Life (1955), as well as all eight of her short stories—four from the collection Cast a Cold Eye (1950) and four that were not collected by McCarthy during her lifetime. A companion Library of America volume collects the remainder of her fiction: the novels The Group, Birds of America, and Cannibals and Missionaries.
In spring 1938, shortly after her marriage to Edmund Wilson and with his encouragement, McCarthy began writing short stories. Her first effort, “Cruel and Barbarous Treatment,” was published a year later in The Southern Review, and Maria Leiper, an editor at Simon and Schuster, read the story and signed McCarthy to a book contract. McCarthy suggested to Leiper that “Cruel and Barbarous Treatment” be gathered together with five other stories as “a novel in six parts,” to be called The Company She Keeps. Of the six stories in The Company She Keeps, two of the stories, “Rogue’s Gallery” and “Portrait of the Intellectual as a Yale Man,” appeared for the first time in the novel. The following list gives the first appearance of the other four:
“Cruel and Barbarous Treatment,” The Southern Review, Spring 1939, pp. 713–25.
“The Man in the Brooks Brothers Shirt,” Partisan Review, July–August 1941, pp. 279–88, 324–43.
“The Genial Host,” Southern Review, Autumn 1941, pp. 280–97.
“Ghostly Father, I Confess.” Harper’s Bazaar, April 1942, pp. 52ff.
The Company She Keeps was published in May 1942 by Simon and Schuster. McCarthy is not known to have been involved in the preparation of a British edition, which was published in London by Nicholson and Watson in November 1942. The present volume uses the first American edition as its text.
McCarthy began writing The Oasis in spring 1948, while she was teaching at Sarah Lawrence, and composed the bulk of it that summer in Cornwall, Connecticut. She submitted the completed manuscript in October to a contest for an unpublished short novel run by Cyril Connolly, the editor of the British magazine Horizon, to be judged by Connolly and Sonia Orwell, then Brownell. The Oasis won the contest, which came with a prize of £200, a dozen bottles of dry sherry, and publication in the February 1949 issue of Horizon. Its publication in Horizon attracted the attention of Bob Linscott at Random House, and it was published without changes in August 1949 by Random House with an introduction by Connolly. A British edition was published in May 1950 by William Heinemann Ltd., under the title A Source of Embarrassment. McCarthy is not known to have been involved in its preparation. The present volume uses the first American edition as its text.
In 1949, McCarthy sold to Robert Giroux at Harcourt, Brace & World both a collection of stories, Cast a Cold Eye (see below), and a novel. She began writing the promised novel in 1950 after receiving a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation in 1949. On February 3, 1951, the first chapter appeared in The New Yorker under the title “Groves of Academe.” She finished drafting the novel late in the year and The Groves of Academe was published in February 1952 by Harcourt, Brace and Company with a revised first chapter. McCarthy is not known to have been involved in the preparation of a British edition, published in March 1953 by William Heinemann Ltd. The present volume uses the first American edition as its text.
McCarthy began A Charmed Life in summer 1954 while living in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. The first chapter was published in The New Yorker under the title “A Charmed Life” in its October 9, 1954, issue and was subsequently revised for its book publication. A Charmed Life was published in November 1955 by Harcourt, Brace and Company. McCarthy is not known to have been involved in the preparation of a British edition, published in April 1956 by Weidenfeld and Nicolson. The present volume uses the first American edition as its text.
Cast a Cold Eye was published in September 1950 by Harcourt, Brace and Company, collecting four stories in Part I as well as three childhood memoirs in Part II that were incorporated into McCarthy’s memoir, Memories of a Catholic Girlhood, in 1957. The four stories from Part I were originally published in the following magazines:
“The Weeds,” The New Yorker, September 16, 1944, pp. 25–43.
“The Friend of the Family,” Town and Country, January 1947, pp. 101ff.
“The Cicerone,” Partisan Review, February 1948, pp. 151–76.
“The Old Men,” The New Yorker, May 13, 1950, pp. 28–34.
A British edition was published in January 1952 by William Heinemann Ltd. McCarthy is not known to have been involved in its preparation. The present volume prints the four stories in Part I and uses the first American edition as its text.
The following four stories were not collected by McCarthy. This list gives their first publication and the source of the text used in this volume:
“The Company Is Not Responsible,” The New Yorker, April 22, 1944, pp. 77–80.
“The Unspoiled Reaction,” Atlantic Monthly, March 1946, pp. 98–101.
“The Appalachian Revolution,” The New Yorker, September 11, 1954, pp. 40–75.
“The Hounds of Summer,” The New Yorker, September 14, 1963, pp. 47–117.
This volume presents the texts of the original printings chosen for inclusion here, but it does not attempt to reproduce features of their typographic design. The texts are presented without change, except for the correction of typographical errors. Spelling, punctuation, and capitalization are often expressive features, and they are not altered, even when inconsistent or irregular. The following is a list of typographical errors corrected, cited by page and line number: 24.5–6, himself a small; 29.19, that. Mrs.; 36.36, Faithful; 93.20, Kunyoshi; 96.39, Latour; 101.34–35, La Pasionara; 112.14–15, artistocratic; 135.21, E.W. Sears; 159.5, himslf; 256.17, preferred——; 256.18, herself——; 271.39, lips, be; 283.16, point the; 286.37, Haines——; 286.40, grey——; 287.4, Haines’; 287.17, not he; 287.21, Breughelesque; 324.37, “ ‘Jocelyn; 326.28, said.; 383.29, sufference; 388.20, le; 403.5, some; 414.34, voice.; 450.5, réclamés; 452.1, Hirschfield’s; 498.40, warmly.; 505.15, caffein; 522.20, “Tartufe,”; 526.16, here,; 529.16, she; 530.1, said; 530.14, Young’s; 531.7, them. “I; 544.28, the the; 559.17, Schonberg,; 563.7, thoughfully,; 568.8, de la; 570.37, scarely; 580.8, gout,”; 583.25–26, sat to; 585.20, DeKooning; 587.28, to to; 604.14, ‘conceive,’ ”; 633.21–22, there no; 644.30, intersted; 646.25, qu’ on; 648.23, rougieriez; 649.33, had been; 668.10, prefunctory.; 675.22, adrenalins; 684.3, step-mothers; 713.23–24, unkown; 768.37, desspair.; 773.32, were; 794.35, Frances; 798.37, responsble; 809.32, recontrent; 844.3, deathy; 845.5, were; 908.31 (and passim), allemands,; 912.13, “Aidemoi,; 915.5, anglais,”; 923.24, establisments across.