Gore Vidal, Burr

Paola Trimarco (The Open University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1973

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Burr is the most celebrated novel of Gore Vidal’s Narratives of Empire series of historical fictions. The work is also considered one of the most popular of Vidal’s fiction writing and continues to be of interest to literary scholars and historians alike. First published in 1973, when Vidal was already known as a writer of fiction and non-fiction and as a political commentator and raconteur on American television, Burr soon became Vidal’s fourth novel on the best-seller list (Larkin Crain, 1974). Six years earlier, Vidal had written another historical novel, Washington, DC, which was popular though somewhat controversial in its depiction of American political life from the depression through to the McCarthy …

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1835 words

Citation: Trimarco, Paola. "Burr". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 13 July 2016 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6181, accessed 26 November 2024.]

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