Product Description

The son of a Midwestern farmer, William Stoner comes to the University of Missouri in 1910 to study agriculture. He had intended to return home and take over his father's farm - but instead, inspired by the professor of English literature, he remains at the university to teach. Stoner tells of love and conflict, passion and responsibility against the backdrop of academic life in the early 20th century. Powerfully and movingly written, Stoner is a study of a dedicated man relentlessly committed to honesty in himself and in his dealings with others. The truth of one man's unassuming life can rarely have been captured with such skill and beauty.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25804 in Books
• Published on: 2003-02-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

New Yorker
'A masterly portrait of a truly virtuous and dedicated man’

C.P. Snow
‘Very few novels in English, or literary productions of any kind, have come anywhere near its level for human wisdom or as a work of art’

Irving Howe, The New Republic
‘Serious, beautiful and affecting, what makes Stoner so impressive is the contained intensity the author and character share’

Customer Reviews

Understated masterpiece.
It's appropriate somehow that this American novel is in-print in England, because it's so unlike most fiction America produces: it's quiet, somber, compact and gracefully written, thoroughly unhip and un-modern. It is a simple tale about a somewhat banal English professor in the midwest whose life just sort of floats by him. The prose is rich and terse, never ostentatious, and for a novel whose setpieces occur mostly in an academic setting, it's utterly engrossing. Williams writes with humanity and insight about relatively normal people we would pass by in the street, and in being so faithful to their aches and appetites, he convinces you -- like all good fiction from Homer to Tolstoi -- that these are real human beings you're reading about. Nothing less than extraordinary. Please buy this book!

Why is this novel not famous?
It's great to have Stoner back in print in the UK, along with Augustus, both with wonderful new introductions. It's been 30 years since I first read Stoner and reading it again for the third or fourth time I can only confirm that the novel more than stands the test of time. It is a story of an honest man, of personal integrity in the face of considerable obstacles. Very few contemporary novels have moved me to the same extent or depth as this one. C.P. Snow in a review of the first British edition asked the question, "Why is this novel not famous?" Why not, indeed.