Irving Stone is a master of literary biography. On the pages of his books, heroes live a real life. In adulthood, he found his vocation and, thanks to his hard work and perseverance, created more than 25 novels about the life of great people.
A bit about the author
The writer was born in San Francisco on July 14, 1903 in a family of immigrants. Irving Stone said of his origin that he had left the bourgeois environment. His parents owned a store. Judging by the fact that in childhood he earned money by selling newspapers, delivering vegetables and delivery men, most likely it was a small store or shop. Already at the age of six, the boy told everyone that he would become a writer, at nine he began to compose the first stories.
His talent was appreciated at school, freed from classwork, so that Irving could write. After school I entered the University of California. As a student, he worked part time as a clerk, seller, played in the orchestra. After studying, he taught economics. The science of the young man did not attract, and in 1926 he preferred literary creation to her.
Debut novel
The first test of Irving's pen was plays, but they did not bring success to the novice writer. In the early 30s he went to Paris to learn to write professionally. To save on a ticket, he made the move to Europe as a navigator.
In Paris, he visited the exhibition of W. Van Gogh and wanted to know more about the artist. Having familiarized himself with the correspondence between the famous sculptor and his brother Theo, Irving Stone learned about the terrible tragedy of this deserted man and decided to write a book about him. The writer traveled to places related to the life of the artist, searched for people familiar with him, studied letters, diaries, and documents. In 1934, a novel about the great artist "Thirst for Life" was released. Irving so realistically recreated the thoughts, feelings, motives of Van Gogh’s actions, when reading a novel, you completely immerse yourself in the world of the great master.
About Jack London
Irving's next autobiographical book was The Sailor in the Saddle about Jack London, published in 1938. While working on it, the author studied more than 200,000 documents, the writer's works. The author introduced self-restraint on fiction, wanting to tell about him as truthfully as possible. Stone's book is considered the best description of the life of D. London.
Gene Irving
While working on the biography of D. London, changes took place in Irving's life - in February 1934, the writer married. Gene Factor gave birth to his children - Paul and Kenneth. She became a loyal assistant to Irving and an inspirer. Almost every Irving heroine, a companion of exalted personalities, has her character traits.
Morality and justice
After a book about D. London, Stone again tries himself in the art genre; he publishes the novel False Witness (1940). It draws attention to the pressing problems of mankind - the destructive power of money, a world where justice loses its meaning. The novel, unfortunately, was not successful. The writer returned to the biographical genre.
In 1941, Irving Stone published a book about a lawyer who devoted his life to protecting the disadvantaged - “Defense - Clarence Darrow”. The author shows that the hero’s freedom, his principles, could not but lead him to protect the oppressed. Humanity and intolerance of injustice made him a lawyer. He stands up for the protection of trade unions, the rights of workers. The writer raises quite bold topics in the novel and concludes that democracy is impossible in a country where people’s labor is exploited.
In 1943 the book "They also participated in the race" was published. She is filled with the author’s thoughts about the fate of America, stories about presidential candidates who have lost the election campaign. A collection of essays was published at the height of the war, and critics spoke quite favorably of them, comparing them with the latest works of S. Zweig.
America, America
Stone’s next book, published in 1944, was The Immortal Wife. Here, the author writes not only a biography of a famous person, but also talks about his wife. Creates a family portrait. He devotes this work to pioneer and explorer John Fremont and his wife Jesse. Irving Stone puts their relationship into an ideal, talking about the great achievements that love inspires.
In 1947, the next novel, The Enemy in the House, was released, the hero of which was Eugene Debs, one of the organizers of the Socialist Party of America. You can relate to the ideas that he preached in any way, but the book was written with talent, and in addition, it demanded civil courage from the author to break through ridicule and prejudice.
The novel "Passionate Journey", which appeared in print in 1949, is not biographical. His hero is a fictional artist. But those with whom he meets in the course of the story, sculptors, artists, writers are real people. The book was created to introduce readers to the history of painting and the legends of America.
A year later, the writer released a collection of autobiographies of famous Americans, "We speak for ourselves."
American women
Stone’s next book also tells about a famous person in America - Rachel Jackson, the former wife of President E. Jackson. A woman became an object of harassment in a metropolitan society, and Stone shows how a kind, sociable, cheerful person can turn into a closed, suspicious, and wary person.
The novel "Love is Eternal", released in 1954, is filled with the same gloomy mood. The heroine of the book is Mary Lincoln. Judging by the reviews, Irving Stone created an image that has become one of the best female portraits. This was noted not only by readers, but also by all Americans - in 1968, Stone was given the Golden Trophy of American Women Award.
The best novels
In the next book, the author goes even further, he describes not a single person, but a whole region. The novel "Worthy of My Mountains", published in 1956, tells of people who colonized the Far West. On the pages of the book there are a variety of personalities - from the crook of the "captain" Sutter to the tramp D. Marshall, who found the first gold in California.
Stone's best biographical novel about Michelangelo's “Pain and Joy” was released in 1961. The author not only recreates the portrait of the great artist, but also perfectly describes the time in which he lived. The material that he collected turned out to be a lot for one novel, so a year later the book "I, Michelangelo, the Sculptor" was published. The writer's studies were highly praised in Rome and he was awarded the Order of Merit. He devoted two more works to this hero: the novel The History of the Creation of the Sculpture of Pieta (1963) and the children's story The Great Adventure of Michelangelo (1965).
Other books
In 1965, the journalistic collection Irving Stone Reviewer and a novel dedicated to President D. Adams, Those Who Love, were published. He goes beyond the biographical, because in it the author raises questions of duty to the country and society and addresses the origins of the nation and the American character.
In 1970, a book about the University of Berkeley, “There was Light,” was published, and in 1971, a novel about Sigmund Freud's Passion of the Mind, which critics say, was unsuccessful. The next work "The Greek Treasure" about Henry and Sophia Schliemann did not become a literary event either. The book itself was written talentedly, read fascinatingly and easily, but from the point of view of critics, the assessment of the hero's activity is too contradictory.
In 1980, the novel Origin was published, which tells of C. Darwin. The book can be called a biography of evolution. The author took into account the mistakes made in the book about Freud, and the narrative about Darwin turned out to be capacious, convincing and dynamic.
Stone’s next book was a novel about the French painter C. Pissarro, “The Deep of Glory” (1985). The author managed to create an amazing portrait of a representative of the Impressionists. Critics have called Stone's work "a monumental work on genius." So Irving Stone triumphantly completed the creative path of the creator of biographical novels. The writer died in August 1989.