Arthur, Anthony 1937–

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Arthur, Anthony 1937–

PERSONAL:

Born January 20, 1937, in Sharon, PA; son of R.S. (in newspaper advertising) and Helen Arthur; married Carolyn Taylor, September 1, 1963; children: Reagan (daughter), Owen. Education: Allegheny College, B.A., 1960; Pennsylvania State University, M.A., 1963; State University of New York at Stony Brook, Ph.D., 1970.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Woodland Hills, CA. Agent—Deborah Grosvenor, Grosvenor Literary Agency, 5510 Grosvenor Ln., Bethesda, MD 20814. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

California State University, Northridge, faculty member of English department, 1970-2002. Fulbright lecturer in Budapest, Hungary, 1980, Szeged, Hungary, 1990-91, and Dortmund, Germany, 2006. Distinguished visiting professor, U.S. Air Force Academy, 1994-95. Military service: U.S. Army, Korean linguist, 1956-59.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

(Editor, with Peter Brier) American Prose and Criticism, 1900-1950, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1981.

(Editor) Critical Essays on Wallace Stegner, G.K. Hall (Boston, MA), 1981.

Deliverance at Los Baños, St. Martin's (New York, NY), 1985.

Forgotten Warriors: The Bushmasters, St. Martin's (New York, NY), 1987.

The Tailor-King: The Rise and Fall of the Anabaptist Kingdom of Münster, Thomas Dunne Books (New York, NY), 1999.

Literary Feuds: A Century of Celebrated Quarrels from Mark Twain to Tom Wolfe, Thomas Dunne Books (New York, NY), 2002.

(With John Broesamle) Clashes of Will: Great Confrontations That Have Shaped Modern America, Pearson/Longman (New York, NY), 2005, revised edition published as Twelve Great Clashes That Shaped Modern America, 2006.

Radical Innocent: Upton Sinclair, Random House (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Anthony Arthur's 1994 book, The Tailor-King: The Rise and Fall of the Anabaptist Kingdom of Münster, discusses a religious uprising that occurred in northern Germany in the year 1534. At its center was a militantly anti-Catholic group called the Anabaptists. Believing that the second coming of Christ was imminent, some nine thousand members of the sect barricaded themselves in their town and proceeded to violently impose their beliefs all who opposed them. Arthur tells in "riveting" style about the ways religious faith clashed with state authority, drawing parallels between the events of that time with those in the contemporary world, according to Steven Schroeder in Booklist. A Publishers Weekly reviewer called the book "vividly written and credibly researched" as well as "entertaining."

Literary Feuds: A Century of Celebrated Quarrels from Mark Twain to Tom Wolfe recounts the background and history of authorial sparring between such famous writers as Bret Harte and Mark Twain, Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway, and Tom Wolfe and John Updike. Arthur notes in his book that his interest in writing it was not to chastise the authors involved for their infighting, but to show the often complex relationship between a writer's life and work. A Kirkus Reviews writer recommended it as "an amusing compendium of the vitriol and ego for which our most enduring writers somehow set aside the time."

Radical Innocent: Upton Sinclair traces the ups and downs of the life of Sinclair, who shot to fame after the 1906 publication of his book The Jungle. Though it was fiction, The Jungle was a realistic work based on Sinclair's thorough investigation into the practices of the meat-packing industry. What he revealed was enough to prompt the passage of safe-food laws, as well as to raise awareness of the horrifying conditions under which many laborers of the time were forced to work. Sinclair was paradoxical in many ways, with the actions of his life often seeming to be at odds with his professed philosophical and political beliefs. Arthur's book is "an immensely readable biography" written with "a deft, light touch," according to a Kirkus Reviews writer. Another enthusiastic review came from Tom Carson, who in Los Angeles called Radical Innocent "a model of good biography, uncommonly well wrought and continually interesting."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 15, 1999, Steven Schroeder, review of The Tailor-King: The Rise and Fall of the Anabaptist Kingdom of Münster, p. 219; October 15, 2002, Trygve Thoreson, review of Literary Feuds: A Century of Celebrated Quarrels from Mark Twain to Tom Wolfe, p. 377; June 1, 2006, Donna Seaman, review of Radical Innocent: Upton Sinclair, p. 24.

Christian Century, December 12, 2006, review of Radical Innocent, p. 23.

Columbia Journalism Review, July-August, 2006, Julia M. Klein, review of Radical Innocent, p. 58.

Financial Times, July 1, 2006, Ludovic Hunter-Tilney, review of Radical Innocent, p. 33.

Historian, fall, 2002, Michael A. Hakkenberg, review of The Tailor-King, p. 201.

Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 2002, review of Literary Feuds, p. 1273; March 15, 2006, review of Radical Innocent, p. 269.

Library Journal, September 1, 1999, Randall L. Schroeder, review of The Tailor-King, p. 209; October 1, 2002, Rebecca Bollen, review of Literary Feuds, p. 93; April 15, 2006, Diane Fulkerson, review of Radical Innocent, p. 85.

Los Angeles, June, 2006, Tom Carson, review of Radical Innocent, p. 140.

National Review, August 28, 2006, John Wilson, review of Radical Innocent, p. 45.

Philadelphia Inquirer, April 22, 2003, Carlin Romano, review of Literary Feuds.

Publishers Weekly, August 2, 1999, review of The Tailor-King, p. 66; March 13, 2006, review of Radical Innocent, p. 50.