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On this page, go to:
[+] 1066
[+] 1937, Birth
[+] 1959, Publication of First Story
[+] 1963, V.
[+] 1966, The Crying of Lot 49
[+] 1973, Gravity's Rainbow
[+] 1984, Slow Learner
[+] 1990, Vineland
[+] 1997, Mason & Dixon
[+] Sources
You can equally check this out:
[+] A family tree
[+] Some pictures
[+] An index of this map
1066
The invasion of England. Out of the St-Malo region (Normandy) accompanies
a certain Pinco William the Conqueror. This Pinchon family
still exists, mainly in Brittany and Normandy, under the names of 'Pinçon'
or 'Pinchon'. There is a 300 m (1,200 ft) hill in the Calvados region
called Mont Pinçon, taken by the British after
heavy fights on August 6, 1944. The name is not unusual in France:
in Louis-Ferdinand Céline's 'Journey to the End
of the Night' (1932) figures a rather nasty army officer called
'Pinçon'.
1523-1533
A Nicholas Pinchon (1498-1534) is elected one of the two London sheriffs. This Pynchon is
the oldest to be mentioned in Joseph Charles Pynchon's family record. His great-grandson
William will be the first Pynchon on American soil. The family settles in and around Writle, Essex.
[+]1630, March 29
John Winthrop, gouvernour of the Massachusetts Bay Colony leaves
England for the American east coast. In his company, William
Pynchon (1590-1662) from Springfield, Essex. Being a shareholder
and patentee, William Pynchon will become eventually treasurer of the Massachusetts
Bay Colony. He is the founder of both Roxbury (1630, 2 miles south of
Boston at the time) and Springfield (1636).
[+]1650
| |
William Pynchon publishes The Meritorious Price Of Our Redemption, considered heretical and therefore banned and burnt in Boston. It is the first case of book burning in the new world. | |
1626-1703
William's son John Pynchon, grows rich as a fur tradesman. He
took the initiative in founding several outposts. He is also a magistrate
in Springfield, as his father before him. His records as a magistrate
are preserved, as is a part of his correspondence. The Pynchon family
is at its most influential now --local Indians call the immigrants 'Pynchon's men'. After John's death, the political influence
will gradually diminish (as well as the family's economic power; most
of the Pynchon men became lawyers, doctors or merchantmen).
1652
William Pynchon returns, disappointed, to England after handing over
his business and properties to his only son John. He keeps on defending
himself and publishes several other theological books. He dies in October
1662 in Writtle, Essex.
1760 (ca.)
Yale alumnus Joseph Pynchon, becomes a merchant
in Guilford, and eventually in New York. He is a 'tory', opposing the
movement towards independence in Connecticut. He marries a Sarah
Ruggles. Since their son was born, there have been at least 6 persons
called Thomas Ruggles Pynchon. The first one is a doctor
who dies at 36.
1787, January 25
The Federal Arsenal (built in Springfield in 1777) is attacked during
Daniel Shays's rebellion. William Pynchon (1740-1818) served
as a major in the federal army that ended Shays's rebellion. He was
the last one to live in 'the Old Pynchon House'.
1851 [+]
Nathaniel Hawthorne publishes The House of the Seven Gables. Rev.
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon (1823-1904) writes the author a letter, complaining
about the 'abuse' of the 'Pyncheon' name. This rev.
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon will become the ninth president of Trinity College
in Hartford, Conn., where he teaches science and religion. In 1881 he
publishes an Introduction to Chemical Physics. His brother William
is the great-grandfather of author Thomas Pynchon.
1885
Publication of Joseph Charles Pynchon's Record of the Pynchon
Family in England and America (revised by W. F. Adams in 1898).
1876-1910
William Pynchon (the Reverend's nephew) came as a young man
to East Norwich. He was a surveyor and did his job on what was to become
Jones Beach. He's the grandfather of our author. His son Thomas was
born in 1907.
1920's [+]
One of the main Wall Street stockbroker firms is Pynchon & Company.
Active on the New York Stock Exchange, they invest mainly in technology
(aviation — electric utilities) and motion pictures (Fox). The
firm has several publications on investment opportunities: in 1929 they
have a publication on The Aviation Industry. After the 1929 Wall
Street crash, the firm will be put into receivership with the Irving
Trust Company.
1937, May 8 [ˆ]
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr, born in Glen Cove, Long Island, New
York, son of Thomas R. Pynchon (d. 1995) and Katherine Bennett . His father is a surveyor and a highway engineer and worked as Oyster Bay Town supervisor. Thomas Pynchon has a younger brother, John, and a younger sister Judith. The Pynchon family moves to East Norwich, Oyster Bay,
Long Island in 1941 or 1942.
1953
Thomas Pynchon publishes some stories and columns in Purple and Gold,
the Oyster Bay High School gazette. His columns, The
Voice of The Hamster get censored, Pynchon signs with Roscoe (or Boscoe) Stein,
and Bosc. He's class salutatorian and receives
an award for the senior attaining the highest in the study of English.
The 1953 yearbook says right under one of the only known pictures of
mr. Pynchon:
PYNCHON, THOMAS
"Pynch" ; P & G ; Yearbook ; Trade Fair 2,
3, 4 ; Sr. Play student director ; Spanish
Club 6, 4 ; Honor Society 3, 4 ; likes pizza ;
dislikes hypocrites ; pet possession, a type-
writer ; aspires to be a physicist.
1953-1955
Mr. Pynchon enters Cornell University. Starting off in an engineering
physics program, he switches during his sophomore year to English literature.
1955-1957
Mr. Pynchon interrupts his studies and takes a two year stint
in the US Navy —his file got lost in a fire (Saint
Louis)— which provides mr. Pynchon with some of his favorite characters
(Pig Bodine) and settings. He may have served as a signal corpsman.
1957-1959
Returns to Cornell. Friends: Richard Fariña, Kirkpatrick Sale (whose wife Faith Sale would be one day Pynchon's editor for V. and Gravity's Rainbow),
Jules Siegel, David Shetzline. Gets his degree, a B.A. in English Literature,
in June 1959. May have been —though this is a bit unlikely— attending
courses given by Vladimir Nabokov. He attended courses by Mike Abrams
(18th centure literature) and Baxter Hathaway.
1959, March [ˆ]
Publication of a first story, The Small Rain, in the Cornell
Writer Volume VI, number 2, pp. 14-32. (Pynchon was
1959, Spring [+]
Publication of a second story, Mortality and Mercy in Vienna,
in Epoch n° 9, pp. 195-213. This is the only story
that will go uncollected in Slow Learner.
1959-1960
Lives in Greenwich Village. Applies for a Ford Foundation Fellowship in
order to write an opera libretto, application which is turned down. He
refuses a Wilson Fellowship.
1960, March
Publication of a third story, Low-Lands, in New World
Writing n° 16, pp. 85-108. Thomas Pynchon contacts
its editor, Corlies 'Cork' Smith, and tells him that neither his place
of birth, nor his studies may ever be mentioned again. Mr. Smith was
to publish Gravity's Rainbow when working at Viking press.
1960, Spring
Publication of a fourth story, Entropy, in the Kenyon
Review n° 22, pp. 277-292.
1960-1962 [+]
Mr Pynchon works for Boeing in Seattle, Wa. As a technical aide (and not as a technical writer,as is widely presumed), he
writes an article in Aerospace Safety, Togetherness,
pp. 6-8 [December 1960]. Author is "Thomas H. Pynchon". There's a rumour mr. Pynchon collaborated on the Minuteman
missile.
1961
Publication of a fifth story, Under the Rose, an early version
of the third chapter of his début novel V., in Noble Savage n° 3,
pp. 223-251. It receives the O'Henry Award and is collected in Price Stories 1962: the O. Henry Awards. The introduction, by Richard Poirier, discusses Pynchon. This is the first article to be written about Thomas Pynchon.
Candido Donadio asks for his opinion on Joseph Heller's Catch-22. Thomas Pynchon writes back -on quadrille paper, as is, or was, his habit:
"I love it. I won't tell you how much, or why, because I always sound phony whenever I start running off at the mouth like literary critic. But it is close to the finest novel I've ever read."
In an undated letter from Donadio to Heller, she refers to the V. manuscript as World on a String.1963, March [ˆ]
Finalising V., an intense letter exchange between Pynchon and Faith Sale, his editor at Lippincott's.
Publication of a first novel, V. Publisher was Jonathan Lippincott,
Philadelphia. The novel wins the William Faulkner Foundation Award (best
début of the year). The advance copies contain following text on the front cover:
"J. B. Lippincott Company takes pleasure in sending you this advance copy of what will almost certainly be the most original novel published in 1963. No novel we have put under contract in the last decade (remember To Kill a Mockingbird!) has stirred up as much advance excitement and passion within the house. It has been called everything from "an 'off-Broadway' novel" to "the most important piece of fiction written since 'Ulysses". We have no doubt that this astonishing first novel by an immensely talented young writer will be controversial and much discussed from the moment of its publication in March 1963."
1964, December 19
Publication of a fifth story, The Secret Integration, in the Saturday
Evening Post (pp.: 36-37; 39; 42-44; 46-49; 51).
1965, December
Esquire publishes The World (This One), the Flesh
(Mrs. Oedipa Maas), and the Testament of Pierce Inverarity, a fragment
of The Crying of Lot 49 (pp. 170-173; 296; 298-303).
1965
May have been living in Manhattan Beach, California.
1965, December [+]
Recommendation of Oakley Hall's Warlock in Holiday vol.
38, nr. 6 (pp. 164-165). Its title: A Gift of Books.
1965
First translation: V.is translated into Italian by Liana M. Johnson.
1966 [ˆ]
Publication of The Shrink Flips, a second fragment of The Crying
of Lot 49, in Cavalier, pp. 32-33; 88-92 (March)
Publication of Richard Fariña's Been Down So Long
It Looks Like Up To Me. The support notice is written by Pynchon (back flap of dust jacket). Pynchon was Fariña's best man at his wedding with Mima Baez
Publication of The Crying of Lot 49, mr. Pynchon's second novel,
again at Lippincott's.
Publication of an essai: mr. Pynchon writes A Journey Into The Mind
of Watts a year after the heavy race riots in Watts, LA, in the New
York Times Magazine (pp. 34-35; 78; 80-82; 84) -- editor at the time was his friend Kirkpatrick Sale. (12 June) [+].
Letter to the editor of New York Times Book Review on
the Gengis Cohen character in the Lot 49 (pp. 22; 24): Pros and Cohns. (17 July).
First article about Pynchon in an academic journal: Hausdorff, Donald. "Thomas Pynchon's Multiple Absurdities" in: Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature [Autumn 1966] 7 no. 3: 258-269. (Autumn)
1967
The Crying of Lot 49 wins the Richard and Hilda Rosenthal
Foundation Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
First translation into French: Plon (Paris,
France) publishes V. (with a very ugly cover), translated by Minnie Danzas.
First translation into Swedish: Buden på nr 49, translated by Caj Lundgren.
First dissertation which also discusses Pynchon: Jesse P. Ritter, "Fearful Comedy: The Fiction of Joseph Heller, Gunter Grass, and the Social Surrealist Genre". University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas, United States, [1967]: DAI 28, 1447A.
1968
First translation into German: V. translated by Dietrich Stössel (Dusseldorf, Rauch).
First translation into Danish: Katalognummer nr 49 udbydes, translated by Arne Herløv Pedersen.
1969 (?)
Mr. Pynchon answers a letter from student Thomas F. Hirsch. Subject is
chapter 9 of V., Mondaugen's Story. The year 1969 may be a typographical
error, Steve Tomaske discovered.
1973, February 28 [ˆ]
Publication of his third novel, Gravity's Rainbow (working title: Mindless
Pleasures). This novel is dedicated to Richard Fariña, who
suddenly died in 1966. The novel shared the 1974 National Book Award with A
Crown of Feathers and Other Stories, by I.B. Singer. The award was
accepted for mr. Pynchon by comedian Irwin Corey. In its first year it sold 45,000 copies.
1974
The Pulitzer Prize Committee for the Fiction Award wishes,
unanimously, to award Gravity's Rainbow. Its advisory board advised
strongly against it, considering the novel 'obscene'. 1974 is the only
year the fiction Pulitzer was not awarded. In the same year, first monography on Pynchon, by Joseph Slade.
1975
Thomas Pynchon declines the William Dean Howells Medal (which
crowns every 5 years the best US novel).
1976
First translation into Spanish: La Subasta del Lote 49, tr. by Veronica Head.
1977, March
Playboy article by former friend Jules Siegel Who Is Thomas Pynchon
And Why Did He Take Off With My Wife?
1978
First translation into Dutch: De veiling van nr 49, (clumsily) translated by Ronald Jonkers.
1979
First Pynchon Notes issue, 'a newsletter'.
1983 [+]
Introduction to Richard Fariña's Been Down So Long It
Looks Like Up To Me.
1984 [ˆ]
Publication of Slow Learner, a collection of his early stories.
Mr. Pynchon writes a remarkable introduction: it's the only time he comments
on himself as writer.
In the Cornell Alumni News, Pynchon Remembers Fariña (pp.
20-23), the Introduction text of a year earlier. (June) [+]
Publication of an essai, Is It Ok To Be Luddite? in The
New York Times Book Review. (28 October) [+]
Candida Donadio (died in February 2001), sells her correspondence with mr.
Pynchon for $45,000 to collector Carter Burden. Mr. Pynchon had already ended his professional relationship with Donadio in 1982
1988
Receives a 5 year MacArthur Foundation genius grant. The file is closed.
Publication of a review, The Heart's Eternal Vow of Gabriel Garcia
Marquez' Love In Times of Cholera. (10 April) [+]
1989
Letter in support of his friend Salman Rushdie: "Words for Salman Rushdie." New York Times Book Review 12 Mar. 1989: 1, 28-29. (29)
1990 [ˆ]
Publication of Vineland, dedicated to his parents. The novel, acclaimed as Pynchon's most readable for a large public so far, becomes a huge seller.
In the same
year (or in 1991) Thomas Pynchon marries his agent Melanie Jackson. Mr and mrs Pynchon
have a son, Jackson. Melanie Jackson is the granddaughter of Robert Jackson,
Chief Prosecutor for the United States at the Nurenberg Trials after
World War 2, and great-granddaughter of Theodore Roosevelt.
In a letter to Fred Gardner, mr. Pynchon's agent states that
the letters written by a Wanda Tinasky were 'definitely not [mr.
Pynchon's] work'. This ends a controversy that began a few years
earlier. In 2002, the story beyond the actual author is reconstructed.
1992 [+]
Introduction to the collected stories of Donald Barthelme.
1993
An essai on sloth: Nearer, My Couch, To Thee.(June 6) [+]
First web site on Pynchon: the Pynchon Pomona pages at San Narciso College, California.
1994
Andrew Gordon publishes in The Vineland Papers a '60's
memoir. The article does not contain
a lot of information about Pynchon. The same year (November 19-20): first conference ever entirely devoted to Pynchon: Schizophrenia and Social Control, organized by Eric Cassidy and Dan O'Hara, at the University of Warwick.
1995
Jacket notes for Spiked! The Music of Spike Jones. In the same year, liner notes for rock band Lotion album Nobody's Cool.
1997
Introduction to Jim Dodge's Stone Junction.
1997, April 30 [ˆ]
Henry Holt publishes a fifth novel, Mason & Dixon, dedicated
to Melanie and Jackson. The publisher, Michael Naumann (later to become German minister of Culture) is upset when the novel is not
nominated for the National Book Award. The publication is surrounded
by a small hype. Publisher's Weekly reports that in a few months 150,000 copies have been sold.
CNN tracks Pynchon down in June: he lives in Manhattan's Upper West Side. When he is filmed he contacts the channel by telephone and requests that the footage is not televized. Pynchon tells a CNN senior producer: "My belief is, 'recluse' is a code word generated by journalists meaning 'doesn't like to talk to reporters.'"
2001, February
The French translation of Mason & Dixon. Translators Brice
Matthieusent and Christophe Claro reveal that mr. Pynchon
has cooperated by fax during the translation.
2001
Ongoing (but unconfirmed) rumours on a new novel, maybe on German mathematician
David Hilbert. Source for this is his former publisher at Henry Holt, Michael
Naumann, who talked about this on a German radio channel.
Publication of David Hajdu's Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina, and Richard Farina. The author conducts an interview with Thomas Pynchon by fax.
In the Japanese Playboy edition, a short comment on the events of 9-11.
Some contest its authenticity (it is, however, duly mentioned in the Pynchon Notes ongoing bibliography). (December)
2003, May 6
Mr. Pynchon publishes a Foreword to George Orwell's 1984,
a centennial edition. Check out the differences between Guardian article and book introduction.
2004, January
Mr. Pynchon's voice is heard in an episode of the Simpsons, episode in
which he plays himself: when Marge Simpson, having become suddenly
a novelist, wants to have a blurb from Thomas Pynchon, he says that
he likes Marge's novel as much as he likes cameras.
2006, November 21
Publication of a sixth novel, Against The Day. The first reviews are rather mixed.
Sources [ˆ]
Clifford Mead's "Thomas Pynchon: A Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Materials", published in 'The Dalkey Archive of Bibliography Series', Elmwood Park, Illinois, 1989, (ISBN 0-916583-37-6), now out of print, contains also the juvenilia, a collection of book covers, and of course a complete overview of publications from and about Pynchon.
Matthew Winston is the author of the most quoted and translated article on Pynchon's life: "The Quest for Pynchon", Twentieth Century Literature, 21.3 (1975), p. 278-287.
Charles Hollander is the author of several articles tying Pynchon, his ancestors and family to the literary works. He was the first to note in print that the Nabokov-Pynchon connection is not as trustworthy as many assume.
Steve Weisenburger Companion contains here and there nearly hidden treasures on Pynchon's life, and ancestors.
Luc Herman and John Krafft reconstructed the changes in V.'s Chapter 9 in "Fast Learner: The V. Typescript at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin", in: Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 2007.
The story surrounding the publication of Gravity's Rainbow is told in a 2005 Bookforum article by Gerald Howard.
The bibliographical section contains an overview of more articles. A list of all Pynchon's endorsements is here.
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