1940
Mailer's freshman year at Harvard becomes a year of two discoveries. Over the winter and spring he reads his way through modern American fiction — James T. Farrell, John Dos Passos, John Steinbeck — and in the Treasure Room of Widener Library he finds the unexpurgated Lady Chatterley's Lover, still unpublished in the United States, which he later says "changed my sex life, or rather, accelerated it." In the fall he begins a two-semester writing course with Robert Gorham Davis, for which he writes "The Greatest Thing in the World" under the original title "The Suckers and the Setup."
Winter and spring — the literary discovery
Through the end of 1939 and the beginning of 1940, Mailer reads his way through modern American fiction for the first time: James T. Farrell, John Dos Passos, and John Steinbeck (Advertisements for Myself, 1959, p. 27).
In the Treasure Room of Widener Library, he reads D. H. Lawrence’s unexpurgated — and still unpublished in the United States — Lady Chatterley’s Lover. In Lennon’s phrasing, Mailer later said it “changed my sex life, or rather, accelerated it.” In late 1940, Mailer loses his virginity to a Cambridge girl.
Fall — the Davis writing course
Mailer enrolls in Robert Gorham Davis‘s two-semester English 1-A writing course at Harvard, which will run through spring 1941. Davis becomes Mailer’s first writing mentor. Over the course of the year Mailer writes several stories for the class, including the piece that will become “The Greatest Thing in the World” — begun under the original title “The Suckers and the Setup”.
Context
Mailer is a sophomore at the start of autumn 1940, his first year having begun in September 1939. The writing he does for Davis this fall bears the first fruit the following April, when the Harvard Advocate accepts “The Greatest Thing in the World” — see 1941.
Related pages
- 1939 | 1941
- The Greatest Thing in the World
- Robert Gorham Davis | Harvard University | The Harvard Advocate