Elizabeth Hardwick is an accomplished essayist, short-story writer, and novelist. She first was published in 1945 with her novel The Ghostly Lover. Since then she has written two more novels and numerous short stories. However, she is known primarily for brilliant literary and social criticism, which has graced the pages of many of the country's leading liberal journals, most notably the Partisan Review and the New York Review of Books. All of Hardwick's writing, regardless of its literary form, is distinguished for its wit, understanding, and polished prose style.

Born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, the author was one of eleven children of Eugene and Mary Ramsey Hardwick. Her father had a plumbing and heating business in Lexington for some years and later sold oil furnaces. He also worked for the city as an inspector; and as his daughter describes it, "He did a lot of fishing, which can...