17 Facts About Granville Hicks

Granville Hicks was an American Marxist and later anti-Marxist novelist, literary critic, educator, and editor.

Granville Hicks was born September 9,1901, in Exeter, New Hampshire, to Frank Stevens and Carrie Weston Hicks.

From 1925 to 1928, Hicks taught at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, as an instructor in biblical literature.

Granville Hicks was an assistant professor of English at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a counselor in American civilization at Harvard.

Granville Hicks was a highly-influential Marxist literary critic in the 1930s who was well known for his involvement in a number of celebrated causes, including his well-publicized resignation from the Communist Party USA in 1939.

Granville Hicks established his reputation as an important literary critic with the 1933 publication of The Great Tradition: An Interpretation of American Literature since the Civil War, a systematic history of American literature from a Marxist perspective.

In 1934, Granville Hicks joined the Communist Party itself and became editor of its cultural magazine, The New Masses.

In 1935, Granville Hicks was dismissed from his teaching position at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, which he claimed to be politically motivated, although school officials denied it.

Granville Hicks continued to teach at various institutions but devoted more and more of his time to writing.

In 1936, Granville Hicks was asked to co-write John Reed: The Making of a Revolutionary, a biography of radical journalist John Reed.

Communist Party General Secretary Earl Browder pressured Granville Hicks to remove several passages that reflected negatively on the Soviet Union but in the end the book was praised for its even-handed and unbiased presentation.

Granville Hicks attempted to organize an independent left-wing alternative organization but with little success.

Granville Hicks was a visiting professor at New York University, Syracuse University, and Ohio University.

Granville Hicks was the director of the Yaddo artists' community beginning in 1942 and later served as its acting executive director.

Granville Hicks died June 18,1982, in Franklin Park, New Jersey.

Granville Hicks was honored with the Clarence Day Award by the American Library Association in 1968.

Granville Hicks wrote the introduction to John Reed's Ten Days that Shook the World.