Cozzens, James Gould
Born: August 19, 1903, in Chicago, Illinois
Died: August 9, 1978, in Stuart, Florida
Vocation: Novelist, Diarist, Air Force Officer
Geographic Connection to Pennsylvania: Doylestown & Lambertville, Bucks County
Keywords: Air Force; Sylvia Bernice Baumgarten; Matthew Bruccoli; By Love Possessed; The Commonwealth vs. Martin Farrel and Francis Wiley; Cuba; Depression; Doylestown; Guard of Honor; Harvard; Isolation; Kent Prep School; National Institute of Arts and Letters; O. Henry Award; Shadowbrook; S.S. Vestris; Stuart; Florida William Dean Howells Medal; World War II
Abstract: James Gould Cozzens was born August 19, 1903 in Chicago, Illinois. He attended Kent Prep School and later Harvard in 1922. He married Sylvia Bernice Baumgarten in 1927. Cozzens won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Guard of Honor and was prolific writer, penning Confusion, The Just and Unjust, and By Loved Possessed. He conducted much of his research in the Doylestown Courtroom in Bucks County, Pennsylvania for The Just and the Unjust. He served as an Air Force Officer during World War II. Cozzens suffered depression later in life and died June 22, 1978 from pneumonia in Stuart, Florida.
Biography:
James Gould Cozens was born the night of August 19, 1903 in Chicago, Illinois to Henry William, a Campbell Press Company employee, and Bertha Wood Cozzens. James’ first word, “Hark!” was his first step to becoming one of America’s greatest yet neglected novelists of the twentieth century. As a child, he lived in West New Brighton, Staten Island. He was first published at the Staten Island Quill at the age of 12. Cozzens attended the Kent High-Episcopal Preparatory School in Connecticut where according to Matthew Bruccoli, biographer and friend of Cozzens, he was a lively, and often rebellious, child. He attended Harvard in 1922 and although he did not graduate Bruccoli states in his book A Man Apart that Cozzens was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters Degree in 1952. At age 24, Cozzens married Sylvia Bernice Baumgarten on December 31, 1927 in a civil ceremony. They met in 1926 while she was working for Brandt & Kirkpatrick, a publishing company. They were married for thirty-six years and did not have any children.
Cozzens wrote his first novel entitled Confusion in 1924 when he was only a sophomore at Harvard College. The piece followed the life of a French aristocratic woman as she attended school in Europe. Cozzens himself felt Confusion was at best mediocre. Reviewers agreed, citing his youth as his main fault. Shortly before publishing his second novel, Cozzens took a leave of absence from Harvard College after he was placed on academic probation. He never returned to Harvard. His second work entitled Michael Scarlett is set in the sixteenth century and chronicles the life of the future Earl of Dunbury. Although well written, it failed to capture the attention of both the masses and critics, either positively or negatively.
In 1925, Cozzens worked in Tuinucu, Cuba as a private tutor. After returning to the United States and marrying Sylvia Bernice Baumgarten in 1927, he drew on his experiences in Cuba to create his next two novels Cock Pit and The Son of Perdition, in 1928 and 1929 respectively. However, as John Fischer suggests in James Gould Cozzens: True Acquist of True Experience that although the novels were received quite well, Cozzens was not content. He states Cozzens currently does not acknowledge his first four novels as his literary work.
Three years later in 1931, Cozzens earned critical and public acclaim with S.S. San Pedro, a novel based on the S.S. Vestris’ sinking on November 12, 1928. His thoroughness in his research and prose led many to believe he was once a sailor. In his biography of Cozzens, Matthew Bruccoli states that critics reacted favorably. He cites the review of William McFee of the Saturday Review of Literature who stated Cozzens’ work “is probably as near genius as a writer in our time can attain.” Another short piece he wrote during this time “Farewell to Cuba” earned him the O. Henry Award also in 1931.
In 1933, the Cozzens family moved to Lambertville in Bucks County, Pennsylvania where they lived at Carr’s Farm on Goat Hill Road until 1958. It was at this location that Cozzens wrote many of his novels. In 1934, Cozzens penned Castaway, a dark, psychological piece that addresses the effects of poverty on mental stability. The main character, Mr. Lecky, is driven to madness and murder. The piece is entirely symbolic as the events are written to take place entirely in Mr. Lecky’s mind over the course of a few seconds. Reviews of this piece were mixed. Some critics were in awe of his writing abilities and originality. Others appreciated the ingenuity without truly understanding the plot. Still others criticized Cozzens. Bruccoli addresses Cozzens’ reaction to the moderate response of this novel in his biography. He writes that Cozzens simply felt he was too intelligent for his critics.
The Just and Unjust was published 1942 and is set in eastern Pennsylvania in 1939. Two of four men involved in the kidnapping and murder of a narcotics dealer are on trial, neither of which is responsible for the physical killing of the drug dealer. The novel addresses the Pennsylvania felony-murder rule in which an individual could be convicted of first-degree murder and executed even if the accused person did not physically kill the victim. It was a dramatic look at the legal system existing in America during this time. The novel is based on the case of the Commonwealth vs. Martin Farrell and Francis Wiley(1935) in Pennsylvania. Cozzens’ meticulous attention to detail in the novel accurately depicts the monotony of the courtroom and complexity of law. Within the novel, he provides an intricate web of relations between the main character, Assistant District Attorney Abner Coates, and peripheral characters throughout. He conducted his research the Doylestown Courthouse in Pennsylvania. It was his best-received novel to date. It earned critical acclaim from the New York Times, New York Herald-Tribune, Saturday Review of Literature, and American News of Books. However, some critics were not impressed; instead they were bored and discontented with the lack of emotional feeling. Others like Granville Hicks’ in “The Reputation of James Gould Cozzens,” responded to these critics by stating Cozzens’ detachment from his characters is needed to attain the objectivity that is striking in Cozzens’ works.
During World War II, Cozzens served as an officer in the Air Force. His diaries of the war have since been published. Aside from his travels, he worked in the Pentagon in what eventually became the Office of Information Services. Around this time, he began to show signs of depression, casually linked to his lack of writing. Soon after in 1943, Cozzens was inducted into the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
With the publication of Guard of Honor, originally titled “The Tempest,” in 1948, critics recognized Cozzens’ mastery of prose. It is set during World War II over the course of three days in September 1943. Cozzens traces his characters, members of the Army Air Forces Operations and Requirements Analysis Division, as they struggle with the political, personal, and social implications they experience during the integration of the military. The book describes the tense atmosphere present between the men at the air base. This novel was won critical acclaim for Cozzens. Critic Granville Hicks states the following of the novel, “Guard of Honor is not only his most ambitious novel; it is his best one. It leaves the reader, moreover, with reason to believe that if Cozzens has now reached the peak of his powers, he can stay on that peak for a long time to come.” His piece was awarded the 1949 Pulitzer Prize. However, the book did not sell well partly due to other popular World War II novels including Normal Mailer’ The Naked and the Dead.
Cozzens’ By Love Possessed in 1957 was set in small town Pennsylvania during the 1950’s and explores all the varieties of love and relations existing via the main character Arthur Winner. By Love Possessed was Cozzens’ best-selling novel. Bruccoli suggests that publicity arising after the publication of this novel did not enhance Cozzens’s image positively. He was viewed as pretentious and often intolerant because of negative interviews and derogatory comments. Bruccoli also states that reviews from critics were severely mixed. Common criticisms centered on the emotional distance from his readers. Hicks defends Cozzens in his book, James Gould Cozzens, stating, “few of his [Cozzens’] characters are capable of strong emotions of any kind” partly because Cozzens “does not approve strong emotions.” Despite a rather harsh Time Magazine critique, the magazine recognized the literary significance of the novel by stating, “None of these shortcomings will keep By Love Possessed from becoming the best American novel of the year, or alter that fact that it is well worth reading.” In 1960, he received the William Dean Howells Medal for By Love Possessed. By Love Possessed was eventually adapted into a feature film in 1961 starring Lana Turner.
Later in his life, Cozzens reverted to a reclusive lifestyle. He refrained from close friendships and valued the anonymity he experienced while living in Williamstown, Vermont at his home “Shadowbrook.” His personal notebooks tell a story of a man suffering from an intense fight with depression. He and his wife, Bernice, eventually moved to Florida where the two would live out the remainder of their lives.
Bernice Cozzens died on January 30, 1978. At the time Cozzens was working the introduction to the book Just Representations. Shortly after undergoing surgery to remove two neoplastic lymph nodes that same year, Cozzens fought with the idea of suicide. James Gould Cozzens died on June 22, 1978 in Martin Memorial Hospital in Stuart, Florida of pneumonia. Just Representations was published shortly after his death. It sold moderately well and received tepid reviews. At the time of his death, the New York Times was on strike and Cozzens was once again neglected—This time on the obituary pages on the New York Times.
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This biography was prepared by Ashley R. Bozewski.