Groth, Janet 1936-

views updated

GROTH, Janet 1936-

PERSONAL: Born November 15, 1936, in St. Ansgar, IA; daughter of Joseph C. (a small business owner) and Esther Hannah (in business; maiden name, Hartwig) Groth; married Albert A. Lazar, June 10, 1994 (died, June, 2000). Ethnicity: "Norwegian-American and German-American." Education: University of Minnesota—Twin Cities, B.A. (cum laude), 1957; attended Oxford University, 1966; New York University, M.A., 1968, Ph.D., 1982. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Lutheran. Hobbies and other interests: Opera, theater, travel, jogging, needlepoint, calligraphy, books, music.

ADDRESSES: Office—c/o Ohio University Press, Scott Quadraugle, Athens, OH 45701.

CAREER: New Yorker, New York, NY, member of editorial staff, 1957-78; University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, assistant professor of English, 1978-82; State University of New York College at Plattsburgh, associate professor, 1982-95, professor of English, 1995-2000. Queensborough Community College of the City University of New York, adjunct lecturer, 1970; Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, adjunct lecturer, 1970-74, instructor, 1971; Vassar College, visiting lecturer, 1976-77; University of Norway, Trondheim, Fulbright lecturer, 1996; Yale University, visiting fellow at Beineke Library, 1997.

MEMBER: International P.E.N., Delta Phi Lambda.

AWARDS, HONORS: Residence grant for Millay Colony for the Arts, 1978; Edmund Wilson: A Critic for Our Time was included in Choice's "outstanding academic book list," 1989.

WRITINGS:

Edmund Wilson: A Critic for Our Time, Ohio University Press (Athens, OH), 1989.

(Editor, with David Castronovo, and coauthor of introduction) From the Uncollected Edmund Wilson, Ohio University Press (Athens, OH), 1995.

(Author of introduction) Edmund Wilson, The Wound and the Bow: Seven Studies in Literature (reprinted from the 1941 edition), Ohio University Press (Athens, OH), 1997.

(Editor, and author of introduction, with David Castronovo) Edmund Wilson, the Man in Letters, Ohio University Press (Athens, OH), 2001.

Contributor of articles and reviews to periodicals, including Commonweal, American Literature, and American Scholar.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Research on the letters of Edmund Wilson.

SIDELIGHTS: Janet Groth has written or edited four well-received books on writer Edmund Wilson. From the Uncollected Edmund Wilson, which she coedited with David Castronovo, includes what World Literature Today contributor John L. Brown considered a "rich and varied selection of notes and reviews covering Wilson's entire career." The volume, Brown wrote, confirms "the range and skill of a critic and humanist … [who was admired as] 'the most intelligent and cosmopolitan figure in American literature.'"

In Edmund Wilson, the Man in Letters, Groth and Castronovo present a selection from the 70,000 surviving Wilson letters, organizing this correspondence thematically. Matthew Price pointed out in New York Times Book Review that their volume, in contrast to Elena Wilson's collection Letters on Literature and Politics, emphasizes Wilson's personal life. Price added, however, that "often their choices raise the question: Should every scrap of a writer's output be collected for posterity? Surely the answer is no." Though Price found that the letters in Groth and Castronovo's collection often shows Wilson's cranky and obnoxious side, a reviewer for Publishers Weekly felt that the book presents Wilson sympathetically. Michael Dirda in Washington Post Book World found some errors and inconsistencies in the book's annotations, but enjoyed Edmund Wilson, the Man in Letters for the opportunity it gives readers to "commune with a rare mind expressing itself in magnificent, self-confident prose."

Janet Groth told CA: "After completing my undergraduate work at the University of Minnesota, I moved to New York, NY and looked for work in publishing. A summer job on a television science show led to an interview with E. B. White at the New Yorker. At his suggestion I was hired as an editorial assistant, a position I held for more than two decades. Ostensibly a combination receptionist and librarian on the writers' floor, I performed a variety of literary and social odd jobs for the seventy writers who used offices there. I was the personal secretary to Muriel Spark in the sixties, advised Emily Hahn on chapter arrangement for her book Look Who's Talking, found a German translator for E. J. Kahn, Jr., when he was working on a biography of Herbert Bayard Swope and, in general, steeped myself in the rich New Yorker mix of fact and fiction, cartoons and comment.

"It was then that I became interested in Edmund Wilson. I had known him only as a figure in the distance, an imposing presence in a light suit and straw hat, who came to use the offices when he was seeing his writings into print. Several years after his death, when I was searching for a suitable dissertation subject, a New Yorker colleague suggested Wilson, and I have never regretted taking her up on it."