All the Days and Nights

Spanning more than 50 years, the stories in this collection encompass the life's work of one of America's best-loved and most acclaimed writers.

William Maxwell's tales, long and short, have the elusive ability to reveal us to ourselves

However different their settings the sensibility remains constant. It is decorous, highly civilised and deeply thoughtful

All of them share the effect of a brilliant view - as though a window were opened on a contained and vivid scene...There is a rare clarity and economy here - along with that wise measured humanity

The stories are formidable...we know we are in the presence of a master craftsman

Maxwell's triumph is to bring brightness and a seething, submerged emotion to an America long dead... he offers us scrupulously executed, moving landscapes of American's twentieth century, and they do not fade

William Maxwell was born in Illinois in 1908. He was the author of a distinguished body of work: six novels, three short story collections, an autobiographical memoir and a collection of literary essays and reviews. A New Yorker editor for forty years, he helped to shape the prose and careers of John Updike, John Cheever, John O'Hara and Eudora Welty. So Long, See You Tomorrow won the American Book Award, and he received the PEN/Malamud Award. He died in New York in 2000.

In settings that range from small town Illinois to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, these stories are distinguished by Maxwell's inimitable wisdom and kindness, his sense of the small details that make up a life, the nuances of joy and sadness that change its direction. Whether describing the reunion of two brothers who will never agree, the furniture of the apartment that becomes everything to a childless couple, the search for the perfect French meal or the life of a ne'er-do-well uncle, Maxwell's stories capture responses that are recognisable in us all.

Time Will Darken It

A visit from relatives sparks an implosion in the life of a good-natured family man

This is such a good novel that I'm still shaking thinking about it... A novel not to be recommended to people but to be pressed on them, urgently

Truly magnificent...I implore you now, not to let it pass you by

A novel written with sympathy and with restraint, and in a prose thatt is almost poetically direct and sure... If you do not read Time Will Darken It you will have missed something rare

Here is a book that is as near perfection as it is possible for a novel to be

He conjures depths of pain and regret in words of radiant simplicity

Maxwell's voice is one of the wisest in American fiction; it is as well, one of the kindest

Every time I read this I discover something new

William Maxwell (1908-2000) was born in Illinois. He was the author of a distinguished body of work: six novels, three short story collections, an autobiographical memoir and a collection of literary essays and reviews. A New Yorker editor for 40 years, he helped to shape the prose and careers of John Updike, John Cheever, John O'Hara, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Eudora Welty. His novel, So Long Tomorrow won the American Book Award, and in 1995 he received the PEN/Malamud Award.

The decision to invite his Southern relatives to stay proves a fateful one for Austin King. By the time they leave, his reputation and his marriage have suffered irreparable damage. Against the perfectly-drawn background of small-town Illinois at the turn of the 20th century, Maxwell once again uncovers the seeds of potential tragedy at the heart of a happily-established family.

The Folded Leaf

Maxwell is the unsung hero of American literature. This is a beautifully observed and moving novel about growing up.

So fresh is Maxwell's wisdom on adolescent insecurities, hesitancies and blind worship that it is hard to imagine that his words are more than half a century old

A true, beautiful and profoundly poignant novel. It is so good it almost seems miraculous

A novel of major quality, the fruit of real engagement with other people and the course of their lives

Few novels have charted the end of boyhood and the coming of adult wisdom as subtly and humanely as Maxwell in this profound, atmospheric work which is as moving as it is shrewd and often funny

William Maxwell was born in Illinois in 1908. He was the author of a distinguished body of work: six novels, three short story collections, an autobiographical memoir and a collection of literary essays and reviews. A New Yorker editor for forty years, he helped to shape the prose and careers of John Updike, John Cheever, John O'Hara and Eudora Welty. So Long, See You Tomorrow won the American Book Award, and he received the PEN/Malamud Award. He died in New York in 2000.

The path to adulthood is littered with broken relationships. 
 
In the suburbs of 1920s Chicago two boys form an unlikely friendship. Spud Latham is slow at school but quick to fight and a natural athlete - Lymie Peters, thin, pigeon-chested and terrible at games, is devoted to him. As they graduate from school to college, tensions start to surface. It is Lymie who first meets Sally Forbes, but it is Spud she falls in love with. This signals the end of their friendship and the rift is almost more than Lymie can bear.

The Chateau

Maxwell is the unsung hero of American literature. This is about the charms and disenchantments of travel.

Not just a book of the year but now one of my desert island books.

Delicious and dead-on... All the embarrassments and gratifications of European travel are preserved in the amber of Maxwell's much pondered, seemingly casual prose.

As the voices of Austen, Turgenev and Tolstoy have survived, so will Maxwell's. There aren't many truly great writers among us. William Maxwell is one of them

It's hard not to see it as a work of genius

He combines educated intelligent and instinctive apprehension of human complexity in a way that would have earned Henry James' approval. William Maxwell is the very model of what a novelist should be

Reading 'The Chateau' is like meeting a very old friend with whom the conversation is always spontaneous, intimate, restorative and unpredictable... Maxwell is that rare thing, a kind writer... But what has made him so influential is his habit of interspersing his subtle accounts of character with sharp observations about human nature.

The novel successfully depicts misunderstandings, isolation and disappointment: are they sensitive to local traditions? Are they laughing at the right jokes? Are they tipping too much?

Maxwell's achievement is to show how human relationships work in spite of the confines of history, language and nationality

Stylishly, subtly, the enjoyment of getting to know another country is conveyed with authority and a perceptions that's rare in our careless times

It is 1948 and a young American couple arrive in France for a holiday, full of anticipation and enthusiasm. But the countryside and people are war-battered, and their reception at the Chateau Beaumesnil is not all the open-hearted Americans could wish for.

They Came Like Swallows

Discover William Maxwell’s classic, heart-breaking portrait of an ordinary American family struck by the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic

Illness, regret, recovery, loss: it's our times in another key. We watch as ordinary lives take an extraordinary turn — the flu felling some and sparing others, and laying bare their emotional lives as it goes

Maxwell does something all great novelists do: he conjures depths of pain and regret in words of radiant simplicity

As you read They Came Like Swallows, you catch yourself from time to time being astonished at how tightly you're gripping the pages… There isn't a word that has dated. It could have been written yesterday, or tomorrow

A story of such engaging warmth that it would thaw the heart of any critic… Will melt many a reader to tears

As the voices of Austen, Turgenev and Tolstoy have survived, so will Maxwell's

This characteristically gentle story about a family tragedy lingers long in the memory as does all this master's work

An excellent introduction to his sympathetic, refined and humane art, and is a most moving and impressive artefact in itself

Rare...exquisite...a cameo-like perfection

William Maxwell was born on 16th August 1908 in Illinois. He was the author of a distinguished body of work: six novels, three short story collections, an autobiographical memoir and a collection of literary essays and reviews. A New Yorker editor for forty years, he helped to shape the prose and careers of John Updike, John Cheever, John O'Hara and Eudora Welty. His novel, So Long, See You Tomorrow won the American Book Award, and he received the PEN/Malamud Award.

Discover William Maxwell’s classic, heart-breaking portrait of an ordinary American family struck by the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic 
 
'A story of such engaging warmth that it would thaw the heart of any critic… Will melt many a reader to tears’ TIME 
 
Elizabeth Morison is an ordinary woman. 
 
Yet, to eight-year-old Bunny, his mother is the centre of his universe. To Robert, her elder son, she is someone he must protect against the dangers of the outside world. And to her husband, James, she is the foundation on which his family rests and life without her is unimaginable. 
 
As the dark winter of 1918 dawns and the shadow of Spanish flu starts to disturb day-to-day life, a moving portrait of Elizabeth takes shape, set against the lives and fate of the Morison family. 
 
‘As you read They Came Like Swallows, you catch yourself from time to time being astonished at how tightly you're gripping the pages… There isn't a word that has dated. It could have been written yesterday, or tomorrow’ Nicholas Lezard, Guardian

William Maxwell

A mosaic of human emotion, a singular and spectacular work of art... some of the greatest truths I've read are held in these 153 pages

One of the great books of our age. It is the subtlest of miniatures that contains our deepest sorrows and truths and love - all caught in a clear, simple style in perfect brushstrokes

A truly extraordinary novel... Maxwell has tapped a vein of strange, pure emotion

So magically deft at being profound...possesses that daunting quality impossible to emulate: it makes greatness seem simple

This calm, reflective and extraordinarily beautiful novel offers American fiction at its finest

Maxwell's voice is one of the wisest in American fiction; it is, as well, one of the kindest

Maxwell is one of the past half-century's unmistakably great novelists

Maxwell offers us scrupulously executed, moving landscapes of America's twentieth century, and they do not fade

Discover the tragically beautiful world of So Long, See You Tomorrow, a quietly devastating masterpiece of human frailty and resilience 
 
Away from the quiet farmlands of Illinois, two lonely teenagers – bound by the burden of their home lives – forge a delicate friendship. But when jealousy ignites in one of their families, it leads to unthinkable tragedy, and severs the two boys' bond forever. 
 
Fifty years later, haunted by the past, the narrator seeks to piece together those harrowing events and find redemption for a lifetime of regret. So Long, See You Tomorrow is a haunting exploration of memory, loss, and the enduring quest for forgiveness. 
 
‘One of the great books of our age. It is the subtlest of miniatures that contains our deepest sorrows and truths and love’ Michael Ondaatje

William Maxwell

Praise for So Long, See You Tomorrow

A mosaic of human emotion, a singular and spectacular work of art... some of the greatest truths I've read are held in these 153 pages

One of the great books of our age. It is the subtlest of miniatures that contains our deepest sorrows and truths and love - all caught in a clear, simple style in perfect brushstrokes

A truly extraordinary novel... Maxwell has tapped a vein of strange, pure emotion

A mosaic of human emotion, a singular and spectacular work of art... some of the greatest truths I've read are held in these 153 pages

One of the great books of our age. It is the subtlest of miniatures that contains our deepest sorrows and truths and love - all caught in a clear, simple style in perfect brushstrokes

A truly extraordinary novel... Maxwell has tapped a vein of strange, pure emotion

A mosaic of human emotion, a singular and spectacular work of art... some of the greatest truths I've read are held in these 153 pages

One of the great books of our age. It is the subtlest of miniatures that contains our deepest sorrows and truths and love - all caught in a clear, simple style in perfect brushstrokes

A truly extraordinary novel... Maxwell has tapped a vein of strange, pure emotion

Books by William Maxwell

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter