Josephine Herbst, The Starched Blue Sky of Spain and Other Memoirs

Angela E. Hubler (Kansas State University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Nicole Kennedy (University of Newcastle), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Sean Seeger (University of Essex), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Domains

Political Science

Dates

First circulation or publication 1991

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Autobiography (any)
Essays/ Lectures (any)
Non-fictional prose

Resources

While many critics agree with Alfred Kazin's New York Times Book Review assessment that Josephine Herbst's lyrical The Starched Blue Sky of Spain and Other Memoirs is her “best book”, the memoirs were not published as a book until 1991, almost thirty years after her death in 1969. According to her biographer Elinor Langer, Herbst began writing her memoirs in the mid 1950s. Herbst published three sections of the memoir as essays in The Noble Savage (1960, 1961) and New American Review (1968). A previously unpublished section, “The Magicians and their Apprentices”, was included in the 1991 publication. This important addition focuses on the significance of Herbst's childhood to her formation as a writer. While the yearning to leave the Midwest of her childhood for the “great world” motivated Herbst, she also details, with great...

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813 words

Citation: Hubler, Angela E.. "The Starched Blue Sky of Spain and Other Memoirs". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 July 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7821, accessed 14 December 2025.]