This Library of America volume contains one of the masterpieces of American naturalism and a major influence on generations of American novelists, James T. Farrell's Studs Lonigan trilogy. Farrell follows the hopes and dissipations of its remarkable main character through the turbulent years of World War I, the Roaring Twenties, and the Great Depression. In William "Studs" Lonigan--a would-be tough guy and archetypal adolescent born to Irish-American parents on Chicago's South Side--Farrell creates an anti-heroic Everyman ...
Read More
This Library of America volume contains one of the masterpieces of American naturalism and a major influence on generations of American novelists, James T. Farrell's Studs Lonigan trilogy. Farrell follows the hopes and dissipations of its remarkable main character through the turbulent years of World War I, the Roaring Twenties, and the Great Depression. In William "Studs" Lonigan--a would-be tough guy and archetypal adolescent born to Irish-American parents on Chicago's South Side--Farrell creates an anti-heroic Everyman helplessly stifled by the conditions under which he grows up. The three novels-- Young Lonigan (1932), The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan (1934), and Judgment Day (1935)--are unparalleled in their sense of the textures of real life: of the institutions of Catholicism, the poolroom and the dance marathon, romance and marriage, gangsterism and ethnic rivalry. The slang of the street corner, the banalities of family conversation, the inflated rhetoric of sermon and pep talk: Farrell got down on paper the real sound of American urban speech with a directness that had a revolutionary impact on American writing. His unsentimental depiction of the sex lives of Studs and his companions was shocking to contemporary sensibilities, and the trilogy was attacked and sometimes banned as an offense to morals. Equally disturbing to some readers was Farrell's relentless questioning of education, home life, and the hollowness and spiritual poverty of the cultural choices offered to his protagonist. Of the milieu in which the trilogy is rooted, Farrell later wrote: "As to the Irishness of it, I generally feel that I'm an Irishman rather than an American," and later added: "I am a second-generation Irish-American. The effects and scars of immigrations are upon my life. . . . For an Irish boy born in Chicago in 1904, the past was a tragedy of his people." This edition of Studs Lonigan , published in celebration of Farrell's centennial, also includes "Boys and Girls," a short story derived from a chapter of Young Lonigan that was deleted because the publisher feared its sexual realism would result in prosecution. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation's literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America's best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.
Read Less
Add this copy of James T. Farrell (University of Minnesota Pamphets on to cart. $10.45, very good condition, Sold by Dorley House Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Hagerstown, MD, UNITED STATES, published 1963 by University of Minnesota.
Add this copy of Studs Lonigan: a Trilogy (Young Lonigan / the Young to cart. $15.00, good condition, Sold by The Book Junction rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Shippensburg, PA, UNITED STATES, published 1938 by The Modern Library.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
VG- in na jacket. Some rubbing & edgewear; yellowing/discoloration; fading & some scuffs; "opened hard" to half title page; previous owner's bookplate inside; otherwise overall clean & sound.
Add this copy of Studs Lonigan: a Trilogy: Young Lonigan / the Young to cart. $19.95, like new condition, Sold by Bookworks rated 3.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Chicago, IL, UNITED STATES, published 2004 by Library of America.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Fine. No dust jacket as issued. Book A fine copy with a green cloth binding and a fine slipcase. Still in original unopened shrink wrap with the publisher's notes. Subscribers edition with no dust jacket as issued.
Add this copy of Studs Lonigan; : a Trilogy to cart. $29.08, fair condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Atlanta rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Brownstown, MI, UNITED STATES, published by The Vanguard Press.
Add this copy of Studs Lonigan; : a Trilogy to cart. $29.09, fair condition, Sold by Best and Fastest Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Wantage, NJ, UNITED STATES.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Fair. 1935 Vanguard Press, brown clothbound hardcover. No dustjacket, cover has heavy wear, spine sleeve is tearing, binding intact, pages have tanning, text unmarked. We take great pride in accurately describing the condition of our books and media, ship within 48 hours, and offer a 100% money back guarantee. Customers purchasing more than one item from us may be entitled to a shipping discount.
Add this copy of Studs Lonigan: a Trilogy to cart. $51.00, like new condition, Sold by Bibliodisia Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Chicago, IL, UNITED STATES, published 1938 by The Modern Library.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Fine. Stated 'First modern Library Giant Edition' 67 Modern Giant titles on rear flap. Uncommon in the original illustrated jacket, which is in very nice, clean and bright condition and protected by a Mylar cover. Octavo.
Add this copy of Studs Lonigan, a Trilogy to cart. $54.00, very good condition, Sold by BingoBooks2 rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Vancouver, WA, UNITED STATES, published 1938 by modern library.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Near Fine in Very Good jacket. Hardback book in near fine condition, dust jacket is very good, [g41] at base of spine, advertisements, complete list of modern library books is listed on inside of dust jacket.
Add this copy of Studs Lonigan: a Trilogy: Young Lonigan/the Young to cart. $81.57, new condition, Sold by Revaluation Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Exeter, DEVON, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2004 by Library of America.
James T. Farrell's "Studs Lonigan" (1935) is a trilogy which tells the story of the short, unhappy, and brutal life of its title character on the streets of Chicago from 1914 to Lonigan's death at the age of 30 in 1930. The trilogy consists of three separate novels. The first and shortest part of the trilogy, "Young Lonigan" begins with Lonigan's graduation from a Catholic school in the eighth grade. The novel describes the young man's first sexual experience, his decision to drop out of high school, and the beginning of his life as a tough on the streets. The second novel, "The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan" continues the story of Lonigan's deterioration during the years of WW I and thereafter, as Studs becomes a fighter, a predator, sexual and otherwise, a hoodlum, and a drunk while trying to hold a job in his father's painting business. The third volume "Judgment Day" is set during the Great Depression. It chronicles Studs' romance with a young woman, Catherine, his physical deterioration from years of drinking and abuse, and his death from pneumonia and a heart condition, leaving Catherine pregnant and alone. Although Farrell (1904 -- 1979) became a prolific writer and a political activist, he remains known primarily for the Studs Lonigan trilogy, a work of his youth. The Library of America published its edition of "Studs Lonigan" in 2004, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Farrell's birth.
"Studs Lonigan" is a tough, raw naturalistic book which describes life of poor. lower middle class Irish Catholics in Chicago in the first third of the 20th Century. The book owes a great deal to Zola, Sinclair Lewis and Theodore Dreiser and other naturalistic writers. Studs Lonigan himself has his good qualities but he appears doomed to failure. The trilogy is a coming of age novel and Lonigan a character who barely escapes adolescence. Raised in a Catholic family in which his father tries to push the boy to join his painting business while his mother urges the boy to consider whether he has a calling to be a priest, Studs does not know what he wants to do with himself. He is fated to a life on the streets which will be short. As a boy of 14, Studs falls in love with a girl named Lucy whom he continues to idealize throughout the book. Midway through the trilogy, after he and Lucy have lost touch for some years, Studs takes her to a dance and alienates her permanently by what Lucy finds to be his overly aggressive sexual demands. Studs tends to vacillate between the ideal of "nice" untouchable girls and raw, crude sex. He has great difficulty establishing a relationship with a woman, although Catherine, the girl he seduces near the end of the trilogy, may have been a plausibly good match for him.
The book is filled with the life of the streets and the aimless wandering of young men in gangs. It is full of the life of the poolroom, bars, cheap dancehalls, parks, brothels, and illicit gambling parlors. A striking scene in the book develops from a sexual encounter between Studs and a desperate woman resulting from her losses to a bookie who happens to be Studs' brother-in-law. Studs is a fighter and prides himself on whipping at the age of 16 a fellow-punk named Weary Reilly who, in the course of the trilogy comes to a worse end than Studs himself. Studs' life on the streets is presented against the background of his stultifying and tense family life and of the Catholicism of his family in school and church. The treatment of the Church and of religion in general is highly unsympathetic. The latter portions of the trilogy offer a strong portrayal of the Depression and its impact on the urban poor in Chicago.
Readers today will be most disturbed by the racism and anti-semitism, epithets and stereotypes, that appear on almost every page of "Studs Lonigan" and that are inseparable from the story. The portrayals a crude in the extreme. Farrell does not adopt or endorse the racism or bigotry of his characters but he does give an uncompromising and uncomfortably explicit portrayal of it.
The trilogy is long and Farrell's writing can be wordy and stilted. But as I continued with the book, I became taken with it and with Studs. Lonigan is mostly an unlikeable character, but Farrell shows him in his weakness, provincialism, awkwardness, and vulnerablilty. The book captures its character and era. The Library of America edition is edited by novelist Pete Hamil. It includes sparse textual notes but a good chronology of Farrell's life. The edition also includes a short chapter called "boys and girls" deleted from the initial version of "Young Lonigan" because of its sexually explicit character.
