Introduction: The Gore Vidal legend
Gore Vidal was born into the heart of Washington, D. C.’s social and political elite on 3 October 1925, yet his work as a novelist, essayist, dramatist, and political activist is that of an apostate to his class and provides a unique perspective on the United States.
In the sequence of seven historical novels that open with the Revolution of 1776 in Burr (1973), and close at the dawn of the Cold War in The Golden Age (2000), Vidal charts a revisionist narrative of the country’s transformation from an isolationist republic to a global empire. In his satirical fiction, he explores how the social and political media machine fixed this transformation in the national psyche, from cinema and advertising in Myra Breckinridge (1968) to the fusion of politics and television...
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Citation: Bryant, Christopher W.. "Gore Vidal". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 June 2002; last revised 02 October 2025. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5009, accessed 04 February 2026.]
