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Douglas Day

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Douglas Day
Day in 1999 on the border between Venezuela and Brazil (Sheila McMillen 1999)
Day in 1999 on the border between Venezuela and Brazil (Sheila McMillen 1999)
Born(1932-05-01)May 1, 1932
Panama
DiedOctober 10, 2004(2004-10-10) (aged 72)
Virginia, USA
OccupationProfessor of English, Writer
GenreBiography, Criticism, Novel

Douglas Turner Day III (1 May 1932 – 10 October 2004) was an American novelist, biographer, scholar and critic. He was also Clifton Waller Professor of English and Comparative Languages at the University of Virginia.[1]

Early life

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Born in Colón, Panama, Day was the son of Rear Admiral Douglas Turner Day II and Bess Turner Day. He served as a fighter pilot in the US Marine Corps until 1955 when he was seriously injured in a car accident. After a lengthy convalescence Day returned to the University of Virginia, eventually completing three degrees there.[2] [3]

Career

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Day first taught at Washington and Lee University. While there he won a Phi Beta Kappa Prize for his first book of literary criticism, Swifter than Reason, a study of the poetry of Robert Graves.[4]

In 1964 Day returned to the University of Virginia where he taught and wrote for the rest of his life. In 1974 he won a National Book Award for his biography of British writer Malcolm Lowry, best known for the novel Under the Volcano. Later Day would edit Lowry's novel, Dark is the Grave Within My Friend is Laid, for posthumous publication, assisting Lowry's widow, Margerie Bonner Lowry. [5] Fluent in Spanish, he also edited a collection of plays by Federico Garcia Lorca.[3]

Day documented the turbulent life of English novelist Malcolm Lowry, the alcoholic author of Under the Volcano. For that he shared the 1974 National Book Award in Biography. [6] Previously, he and Lowry's widow Margerie edited the novelist's posthumous novel Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid (1969).

In 1973 he edited a 'restored' and definitive version of William Faulkner's Flags in the Dust, which was originally published in truncated form as Sartoris.

Other books by Douglas Day include Swifter than Reason: The Poetry and Criticism of Robert Graves (1963) and two novels: Journey of the Wolf (1977)— for which he received the Rosenthal Award for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; and The Prison Notebooks of Ricardo Flores Magon (1991).

Bibliography

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  • The Prison Notebooks of Ricardo Flores Magon. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991. ISBN 0-15-174598-6.
  • Journey of the Wolf. New York: Atheneum, 1977. ISBN 0-689-10771-4.
  • Malcolm Lowry: A Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973. ISBN 0-19-501711-0.
  • William Faulkner's Flags in the Dust (1973); editor.
  • Swifter than Reason: The Poetry and Criticism of Robert Graves. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1963.
  • Malcolm Lowry's Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid (1969); editor, with Margerie Lowry.

Notes

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References

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  1. ^ "Douglas Turner Day III". The Daily Progress. Charlottesville, Virginia. 13 October 2004. p. 4.
  2. ^ "Douglas Turner Day III". The Daily Progress. Charlottesville, Virginia. 18 October 2004. p. 4.
  3. ^ a b Bromley, Anne (October 29 – November 11, 2004). "The Adventure Ends for Writer and English Professor Douglas Day". Inside UVA Online. Archived from the original on 2 March 2012. Retrieved 9 February 2012.
  4. ^ "Douglas Turner Day III". The Daily Progress. Charlottesville, Virginia. 18 October 2004. p. 4.
  5. ^ "Douglas Turner Day III". The Daily Progress. Charlottesville, Virginia. 18 October 2004. p. 4.
  6. ^ NB: The award was split between Day and John Clive.
    "National Book Awards, 1974". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 20 February 2012.
  • Fox, Margalit. "Douglas Day, 72, Malcolm Lowry Biographer is Dead." New York Times, 19 October 2004.
  • Sullivan, Patricia. "Douglas T. Day III; Writer, Educator." The Washington Post, 16 October 2004.[1]
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