North Carolina's most famous and perhaps greatest writer, Thomas Wolfe, was born in Asheville, the eighth child of a Pennsylvania stonecutter and his third wife, a hill country school teacher. Wolfe grew up in his mother's boarding house. An exceptional student, he started public school before he was six, and at age eleven transferred at his teachers' request to a private school. He entered the university at Chapel Hill at fifteen "an awkward, unhappy misfit." By the time he graduated, he was editor of the college newspaper and had seen several of his plays produced by the Carolina Playmakers. Planning to become a dramatist, he went to Harvard, then to New York, where no one would produce his very long plays. To "buy time," he took a job teaching at New York University. During a 1926 trip to Europe, he began writing down his early memories of Asheville. He abandoned playwriting, and after three years of writing, revision and editing, published Look Homeward, Angel: A Story of the Buried Life.

Look Homeward, Angel, considered one of the great coming-of-age novels in the English language, follows the story of Eugene Gant, a sensitive, intelligent boy growing up in a small Southern mountain city. The book's success allowed Wolfe to leave his teaching job to travel and continue writing. Six years later, Wolfe published Of Time and the River, which continues Eugene's adventures as a young man at Harvard, and in New York and Europe. Wolfe divided the next three years between writing and travelling in the United States and Europe. In 1938, he turned his mountainous manuscript over to Edward C. Aswell, his editor at Harper & Brothers, and left for the West Coast. While in Seattle, he was taken ill with pneumonia. He was brought across the continent for surgery at Johns Hopkins, in Baltimore, where he died of miliary tuberculosis of the brain.

Harper & Brothers produced two novels and a book of short fiction from the huge manuscript Wolfe had left behind. Like the first two novels, they follow the adventures of their hero Monk Webber from his Southern mountain town boyhood to New York and Europe, exploring his complex relationship with an older woman, assumed to be based on Wolfe's intense affair with Aline Bernstein. In 1991, the University of North Carolina Press published The Good Child's River from an unfinished manuscript based on Bernstein's early life, written by Wolfe in her voice.

Although some in Asheville never forgave him for the truths he had told in his books, Thomas Wolfe was considered at the time of his death to be the greatest talent North Carolina had given to American literature. His novels and collected short stories go beyond autobiography, trying to, in William Faulkner's words, "put all the experience of the human heart on the head of a pin." His intense poetic language and thoughtfully developed symbology, combined with his uncanny ability to enter the minds of his other characters and give them powerful voices, elevate the books from memoir to undeniable literary art.

The Death of Gant
from Of Time and the River
C. Scribner's Sons, 1963

"What's the matter, Mr. Gant? There's nothing hurtin' you?" "No," he said. "Just something in my throat. Could I have some water?" "Why, yes, sir! That's the very thing!" She got up hastily, and looking about in a somewhat confused manner, saw behind her a pitcher of water and a glass upon his old walnut bureau, and saying "This very minute, sir!" started across the room. And at the same moment, Gant was aware that some one had entered the house, was coming towards him through the hall, would soon be with him. Turning his head towards the door he was conscious of something approaching with the speed of light, the instancy of thought, and at that moment he was filled with a sense of inexpressible joy, a feeling of triumph and security he had never known. Something immensely bright and beautiful was converging in a flare of light, and at that instant, the whole room blurred around him, his sight was fixed upon that focal image in the door, and suddenly the child was standing there and looking towards him. And even as he started from his pillows, and tried to call his wife he felt something thick and heavy in his throat that would not let him speak. He tried to call to her again but no sound came, then something wet and warm began to flow out of his mouth and nostrils, he lifted his hands up to his throat, the warm wet blood came pouring out across his fingers; he saw it and felt joy. For now the child-or some one in the house was speaking, calling to him; he heard great footsteps, soft but thunderous, imminent, yet immensely far, a voice well-known, never heard before. He called to it, and then it seemed to answer him; he called to it with faith and joy to give him rescue, strength, and life, and it answered him and told him that all the error, old age, pain and grief of life was nothing but an evil dream; that he who had been lost was found again, that his youth would be restored to him and that he would never die, and that he would find again the path he had not taken long ago in a dark wood. And the child still smiled at him from the dark door; the great steps, soft and powerful, came even closer, and as the instant imminent approach of that last meeting came intolerably near, he cried out through the lake of jetting blood, "Here, Father, here!" and heard a strong voice answer him, "My son!"

The Autobiographical Outline for Look Homeward, Angel. Edited by Lucy Conniff and Richard S. Kennedy. N.p.: Thomas Wolfe Society, 1991.

The Complete Short Stories of Thomas Wolfe. Edited by Francis E. Skipp. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1987.

The Crisis in Industry. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1919.

The Face of a Nation: Poetical Passages from the Writings of Thomas Wolfe. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1939.

From Death to Morning. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1935.

Gentlemen of the Press (play). Chicago: W. Targ and Black Archer Press, 1942.

[George Webber, Writer]: An Introduction by a Friend. Edited by John L. Idol, Jr. N.p.: Thomas Wolfe Society, 1994.

The Good Child's River. Edited by Suzanne Stutman. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1991.

The Hills Beyond. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1941.

The Hound of Darkness. Edited by John L. Idol, Jr. N.p.: Thomas Wolfe Society, 1986.

The Letters of Thomas Wolfe. New York: Scribner, 1956.

The Letters of Thomas Wolfe to His Mother. Edited by C. Hugh Holman and Sue F. Ross. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1968.

Look Homeward, Angel. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1929.

The Lost Boy. Edited by James W. Clark, Jr. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1992.

Mannerhouse (play). New York: Harper, 1948.

The Mountains (play). Edited by Pat M. Ryan. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1970.

The Notebooks of Thomas Wolfe. Edited by Richard S. Kennedy and Paschal Reeves. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1970.

Of Time and the River. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1935.

The Party at Jack's. Edited by Suzanne Stutman and John L. Idol, Jr. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1995.

The Short Novels of Thomas Wolfe. Edited by C. Hugh Holman. New York: Scribner, 1961.

Starwick Episodes. Edited by Richard S. Kennedy. N.p.: Thomas Wolfe Society, 1989.

A Stone, a Leaf, a Door: Poems. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1945.

The Story of a Novel. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936.

Thomas Wolfe's Composition: The North State Fitting School, 1912-1915. Edited by Alice R. Cotten. Chapel Hill: North Caroliniana Society and Thomas Wolfe Society, 1990.

The Web and the Rock. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1939.

Welcome to Our City (play). Edited by Richard S. Kennedy. Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 1983.

You Can't Go Home Again. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1940.

Appearances in periodicals include:

Additional Information on Wolfe can be found in:

The Autobiography of an American Novelist. Edited by Leslie Field. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983.

Champion, Myra. The Lost World of Thomas Wolfe. Asheville: Thomas Wolfe Memorial, 1970.

Donald, David H. Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe. Boston: Little, Brown, 1987.

The Enigma of Thomas Wolfe: Biographical and Critical Selections. Edited by Richard Walser. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1953.

Evans, Elizabeth. Thomas Wolfe. New York: F. Ungar, 1984.

Idol, John L., Jr. A Thomas Wolfe Companion. New York: Greenwood Press, 1987.

Johnson, Elmer D. Of Time and Thomas Wolfe: A Bibliography. New York: Scarecrow Press, 1959.

—. Thomas Wolfe: A Checklist. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1970.

Johnston, Carol. Thomas Wolfe: A Descriptive Bibliography. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987.

Kennedy, Richard S. The Window of Memory: The Literary Career of Thomas Wolfe. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1962.

Nowell, Elizabeth. Thomas Wolfe, A Biography. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1960.

Phillipson, John S. Thomas Wolfe: A Reference Guide. Boston, G.K. Hall, 1977.

Turnbull, Andrew. Thomas Wolfe. New York: Scribner, 1967.

Walser, Richard. Thomas Wolfe: An Introduction and Interpretation. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1961.

Wheaton, Mabel Wolfe. With LeGette Blythe. Thomas Wolfe and His Family. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961.

Links to further information:

The Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize

The Thomas Wolfe Web Site

Thomas Wolfe Collection at UNC

Thomas Wolfe Memorial State Historic Site

Thomas Wolfe Society

Thomas Wolfe Student Essay Prize

Thomas Wolfe U.S. Postage Stamp Design