Letters to My Father

Between 1943 and 1953, William Styron wrote a remarkable series of letters to his father. The earliest letters were written from Davidson College, where young Bill Styron was a freshman in need of money; the final letters were written from Italy, where William Styron, a successful novelist, was finishing a year at the American Academy in Rome and had just been married.

Together these letters, almost one hundred in number, present a portrait of the artist as a young man—intensely desirous of literary success, grateful for his father’s support, and ambitious for his own future.

The volume, published in 2009 by LSU Press in its Southern Literary Studies series, contains a foreword by Rose Styron (a reminiscence of the senior Styron), an editorial introduction by James L. W. West III, three letters from Styron père to Styron fis), a biographical sketch of the son written by the father, six pieces of apprentice fiction by Styron, and nine illustrations.

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