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The Poorhouse Fair

A Novel

A Novel

By John Updike

By John Updike

By John Updike

By John Updike

By John Updike

By John Updike

Best Seller
Paperback $16.00

Mar 13, 2012 | ISBN 9780345468239

Hardcover $30.00

Feb 12, 1977 | ISBN 9780394410500

Ebook $12.99

Mar 13, 2012 | ISBN 9780679645771

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    The Poorhouse Fair by John Updike
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    Mar 13, 2012 | ISBN 9780345468239

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      Feb 12, 1977 | ISBN 9780394410500

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    About The Poorhouse Fair

    “Brilliant . . . Here is the conflict of real ideas; of real personalities; here is a work of intellectual imagination and great charity. The Poorhouse Fair is a work of art.”—The New York Times Book Review

    The hero of John Updike’s first novel, published when the author was twenty-six, is ninety-four-year-old John Hook, a dying man who yet refuses to be dominated. His world is a poorhouse—a county home for the aged and infirm—overseen by Stephen Conner, a righteous young man who considers it his duty to know what is best for others. The action of the novel unfolds over a single summer’s day, the day of the poorhouse’s annual fair, a day of escalating tensions between Conner and the rebellious Hook. Its climax is a contest between progress and tradition, benevolence and pride, reason and faith.

    Praise for The Poorhouse Fair

    “A first novel of rare precision and real merit . . . a rich poorhouse indeed.”—Newsweek
     
     “Turning on a narrow plot of ground, it achieves the rarity of bounded, native truth, and comes forth as microcosm.”—Commonweal
     

    About The Poorhouse Fair

    The Poorhouse Fair, John Updike’s first novel, was written in 1957 and published in January of 1959. For this, its sixth printing, the author has appended an introduction discussing the book’s inspiration, its aesthetic sources and models in classics of science fiction, and the way in which its future (projected to be about 1977) compares with the present. The Poorhouse Fair was hailed at the time of its publication as “a rare and beautiful achievement” and “a work of intellectual imagination and great charity.” Though its future has degenerated into our present, and Updike’s later work is better known, such critics as Henry Bech have hailed this little novel as, still, “surely his masterpiece.”

    About The Poorhouse Fair

    “Brilliant . . . Here is the conflict of real ideas; of real personalities; here is a work of intellectual imagination and great charity. The Poorhouse Fair is a work of art.”—The New York Times Book Review

    The hero of John Updike’s first novel, published when the author was twenty-six, is ninety-four-year-old John Hook, a dying man who yet refuses to be dominated. His world is a poorhouse—a county home for the aged and infirm—overseen by Stephen Conner, a righteous young man who considers it his duty to know what is best for others. The action of the novel unfolds over a single summer’s day, the day of the poorhouse’s annual fair, a day of escalating tensions between Conner and the rebellious Hook. Its climax is a contest between progress and tradition, benevolence and pride, reason and faith.

    Praise for The Poorhouse Fair

    “A first novel of rare precision and real merit . . . a rich poorhouse indeed.”—Newsweek
     
     “Turning on a narrow plot of ground, it achieves the rarity of bounded, native truth, and comes forth as microcosm.”—Commonweal
     

    Read An Excerpt

    Read An Excerpt

    Read An Excerpt

    Also by John Updike

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    See all books by John Updike

    Also by John Updike

    Selected Poems
    Olinger Stories
    S.
    Buchanan Dying
    Hugging the Shore
    See all books by John Updike

    Also by John Updike

    Selected Poems
    Olinger Stories
    S.
    Buchanan Dying
    Hugging the Shore
    See all books by John Updike

    About John Updike

    JOHN UPDIKE is the author of more than sixty books, eight of them collections of poetry. His novels won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle, and the William Dean Howells Medal of the American… More about John Updike

    About John Updike

    JOHN UPDIKE is the author of more than sixty books, eight of them collections of poetry. His novels won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle, and the William Dean Howells Medal of the American… More about John Updike

    About John Updike

    JOHN UPDIKE is the author of more than sixty books, eight of them collections of poetry. His novels won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle, and the William Dean Howells Medal of the American… More about John Updike

    Product Details

    Category: Literary Fiction

    Paperback | $16.00
    Published by Random House Trade Paperbacks
    Mar 13, 2012 | 176 Pages | 5-1/2 x 8-1/4 | ISBN 9780345468239

    Category: Literary Fiction

    Hardcover | $30.00
    Published by Knopf
    Feb 12, 1977 | 208 Pages | 5 x 8 | ISBN 9780394410500

    Category: Literary Fiction

    Ebook | $12.99
    Published by Random House
    Mar 13, 2012 | 176 Pages | ISBN 9780679645771

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    Praise

    “A first novel of rare precision and real merit . . . a rich poorhouse indeed.”—Newsweek
     
     “Turning on a narrow plot of ground, it achieves the rarity of bounded, native truth, and comes forth as microcosm.”—Commonweal
     
    “Brilliant . . . Here is the conflict of real ideas; of real personalities; here is a work of intellectual imagination and great charity. The Poorhouse Fair is a work of art.”—The New York Times Book Review

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