About this item

A revelatory narrative of the intersecting lives and works of revered authors Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, E. M. Forster and D. H. Lawrence during 1922, the birth year of modernismThe World Broke in Two tells the fascinating story of the intellectual and personal journeys four legendary writers, Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, E. M. Forster, and D. H. Lawrence, make over the course of one pivotal year. As 1922 begins, all four are literally at a loss for words, confronting an uncertain creative future despite success in the past. The literary ground is shifting, as Ulysses is published in February and Proust's In Search of Lost Time begins to be published in England in the autumn. Yet, dismal as their prospects seemed in January, by the end of the year Woolf has started Mrs. Dalloway, Forster has, for the first time in nearly a decade, returned to work on the novel that will become A Passage to India, Lawrence has written Kangaroo, his unjustly neglected and most autobiographical novel, and Eliot has finished -- and published to acclaim -- "The Waste Land."As Willa Cather put it, "The world broke in two in 1922 or thereabouts," and what these writers were struggling with that year was in fact the invention of modernism. Based on original research, Bill Goldstein's The World Broke in Two captures both the literary breakthroughs and the intense personal dramas of these beloved writers as they strive for greatness.



About the Author

Bill Goldstein

Bill Goldstein, the founding editor of the New York Times books website, reviews books and interviews authors for NBC's "Weekend Today in New York." He is also the curator of public programs at Roosevelt House, the public policy institute of New York's Hunter College. A graduate of the University of Chicago, Goldstein received a PhD in English from the City University of New York Graduate Center in 2010. He is the recipient of writing fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the Ucross Foundation and elsewhere for his work on "The World Broke in Two."His NBC segments can be seen online at www.nbcnewyork.com/books.



Read Next Recommendation

Report incorrect product information.