Dawn Powell

Gore Vidal published in 1987, in The New York Review of Books, his essay “Dawn Powell; Queen of the Golden Age” in which he championed this great satirist and novelist. Because of Vidal and Tim Page’s efforts, Dawn Powell (1897-1965) was brought again into the American literary landscape and her works reprinted.

Witty and a literary savvy, Dawn’s most famous quote is: ” ‘Realism’ is the only completely vague word. ‘Satire’ is the technical word for writing people as they are: ‘romantic’ the other extreme of people as they are to themselves –but both of these are the truth. The ability to put in motive is called satire; the ability to put in vision is romanticism.” 

Among her best novels. The Golden Spur and The Wicked Pavillion.