The Unpossessed A Novel of the Thirties

Tess Slesinger's 1934 novel,The Unpossesseddetails the ins and outs and ups and downs of left-wing New York intellectual life and features a cast of litterateurs, layabouts, lotharios, academic activists, and fur-clad patrons of protest and the arts. This cutting comedy about hard times, bad jobs, lousy marriages, little magazines, high principles, and the morning after bears comparison with the best work of Dawn Powell and Mary McCarthy.

Tess Slesinger (1905-1945) grew up in New York in a progressive assimilated Jewish family and attended Swarthmore College and the Columbia University School of Journalism. After a few short-term jobs in journalism, she married Herbert Solow, editor of the Menorah Journal, through whom she became acquainted with the leading young, leftist intellectuals of the time, including Lionel Trilling and Clifton Fadiman. In addition to The Unpossessed, her only published novel, Slesinger’s writing credits include one book of short stories, Time: the Present, and several screenplays, including The Good Earth and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

Elizabeth Hardwick (1916-2007) was born in Lexington, Kentucky, and educated at the University of Kentucky and Columbia University. A recipient of a Gold Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she is the author of three novels, a biography of Herman Melville, and four collections of essays. She was a co-founder and advisory editor of The New York Review of Books and contributed more than one hundred reviews, articles, reflections, and letters to the magazine. NYRBClassics publishes Sleepless Nights, a novel, and Seduction and Betrayal, a study of women in literature.