History of The Novel
The novel took Santayana forty-five years to complete and was a best-selling novel in 1936 (second only to Gone with the Wind). It was first published in 1935 by Constable Publishers in London. The 721 page novel was printed in Great Britain by Robert Maclehose and Co. Ltd. It was first published in the US by Charles Scribner's Sons in New York. It was reprinted again in 1937 (this edition included a preface in which Santayana described the writing process and his philosophical intentions), 1940, and 1961. It was most recently published in 1994 as the fourth volume of The Works of George Santayana, a critical edition of the philosopher's writings published by MIT Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The MIT edition is based on the original typescript, making the content true to Santayana's original intentions. This edition also has footnotes to the text that provide the reader with historical information, commentary, and notes on editing decisions. The cover was "inspired by George Santayana's choice of the 1935 Constable edition dust jacket of The Last Puritan.
Santayana separated the book into five parts. He named the different sections of the book according to how each individual period of time matched up with Oliver Alden's life: Ancestry, Boyhood, First Pilgrimage, In The Home Orbit, and Last Pilgrimage.
Santayana was at first hesitant about having the novel published. It contains explicit content (by the standards of the time) such as drug use, sexual deviance, atheism, etc. Considering that he was writing about many of his colleagues, he was afraid that it might be very controversial. But, as he wrote in one letter: "The dangerous sides of the book...seem to have been overlooked or timidly ignored by the critics."
In writing this so-called "memoir in the form of a novel," Santayana was very concerned with its interpretation and reception. "There is no loud or obvious tragedy coming," he writes, "only a secret failure in the midst of success. But is a wonderful noble boy, if only I am able to make the reader see it."
Read more about this topic: The Last Puritan
Famous quotes containing the words history of the, history of and/or history:
“Three million of such stones would be needed before the work was done. Three million stones of an average weight of 5,000 pounds, every stone cut precisely to fit into its destined place in the great pyramid. From the quarries they pulled the stones across the desert to the banks of the Nile. Never in the history of the world had so great a task been performed. Their faith gave them strength, and their joy gave them song.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“No one is ahead of his time, it is only that the particular variety of creating his time is the one that his contemporaries who are also creating their own time refuse to accept.... For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without a pause almost everybody accepts. In the history of the refused in the arts and literature the rapidity of the change is always startling.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)