Simmonds, Roy

About the author: Roy Simmonds was born in London in 1925 and has been an independent scholar since the early 1970s. he has published essays on William March, John Steinbeck, Edward J. O’Brien, and Ernest Hemingway in a number of US literary journals. His previous works are: The Two Worlds of William March; John Steinbeck: The War Years, 1939-1945; and A Biographical and Critical Introduction of John Steinbeck (Mellen, 2000).

Biographical and Critical Introduction of John Steinbeck

2000 0-7734-7699-7
This study will provide readers with a comprehensive insight into his life and work. It examines his evolution as a writer from 1929 until 1968. It explores not only the themes that preoccupied him as a writer, but also the concepts and philosophies that shaped the course of investigations into the mysteries of human nature and psyche. The book also shows how hi interest in marine biology and his friendship with the scientist Ed Ricketts is also reflected in his work, reaching its greatest fruition in the co-authored volume Sea of Cortez. The linking of this ongoing critical review with a close look at his personal life will enable the reader to identify the provenances of many of his novels and to appreciate fully the difficult circumstances in which some of them were written. An extensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources is included, listing all Steinbeck’s uncollected fiction and non-fiction, and the films that have been made from his works.

Edward J. O’brien and His Role in the Rise of the American Short Story in the First Half of the Twentieth Century

2001 0-7734-7395-5
This biography provides a balanced assessment of the true achievement of this complex and work-driven personality, who played an essential role as a discerning editor at a time when the short story scene in American was undergoing a radical evolution. In April 1916, he published The Best Short Stories of 1915, which proved to be the first of the series of annual anthologies of the short stories he considered the cream of those appearing in US magazines during the preceding 12 months. It continued under his guidance until the 1941 volume published posthumously in his name. In the eyes of many young writers – Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Hemingway, and William Saroyan, for example – he became regarded as a respected authority, providing them with encouragement and inspiration by reprinting their stories in his anthologies. He loyally supported the so-called ‘little’ magazines and was instrumental in drawing the attention of both readers and writers to their existence. In Oxford, he co-edited the short-lived New Stories as an anticipated British equivalent of Story.