Essay Collections and Other Nonfiction:
Contraries. New York: Oxford U P, 1981.
"'The Immense Indifference of Things': Conrad's Nostromo," 82-115. Reprinted From: Novel: A Forum on Fiction 9( Fall 1975): 5-22.
"'In the Fifth Act': The Art of the English and Scottish Traditional Ballads," 116-140. Combination of articles that appeared in Dalhousie Review Winter 1963 and Southern Review 15(Summer 1979): 560-566.
"Is This the Promised End?": The Tragedy of King Lear," 51-81. Reprinted From: Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 33( Fall 1974): 19-32.
"Jocoserious Joyce," 171-187. Reprinted From: Critical Inquiry Summer 1976.
"Lawrence's Gotterdammerung: The Apocalyptic Vision of Women in Love," 141-170. Reprinted From: Critical Inquiry 4( Spring 1978): 559-578.
"The Picture of Dorian Gray: Wilde's Parable of the Fall," 3-16. Reprinted From: Critical Inquiry 7( Summer 1980): 419-428.
"Tragic Rites in Dostoyevsky's The Possessed," 17-50. Reprinted From: Georgia Review 32( Fall 1978): 868-893.
George Bellows: American Artist. Hopewell, NJ: Ecco, 1995.
The Edge of Impossibility: Tragic Forms in Literature. New York: Vanguard, 1972. Reprinted: Greenwich, CT: Fawcett, 1973; London: Gollancz, 1976.
"The Hostile Sun": The Poetry of D.H. Lawrence. Los Angeles: Black Sparrow, 1973.
New Heaven, New Earth: The Visionary Experience in Literature. New York: Vanguard, 1974. Reprinted: London: Gollancz, 1976; with On Boxing, Volume 12 of The Selected Works of Joyce Carol Oates, Kyoto: Rinsen, 1998 [English-Language].
"Anarchy and Order in Beckett's Trilogy,"
"The Art of Relationships: Henry James and Virginia Woolf,"
"The Death Throes of Romanticism: The Poetry of Sylvia Plath," Reprinted From: Southern Review 9(1973): 501-522.
"The Hostile Sun: The Poetry of D.H. Lawrence,"
"Kafka's Paradise,"
"The Nightmare of Naturalism: Harriet Arnow's The Dollmaker,"
"Out of Stone, Into Flesh: The Imagination of James Dickey,"
"The Teleology of the Unconscious: The Art of Norman Mailer,"
"The Visionary Art of Flannery O'Connor," Reprinted From: Southern Humanities Review 7(1973): 235-246.
On Boxing. Garden City, NY: Dolphin/Doubleday, 1987. Reprinted: New York: Kensington, 1988; London: Bloomsbury, 1997; with New Heaven, New Earth: The Visionary Experience in Literature, Volume 12 of The Selected Works of Joyce Carol Oates, Kyoto: Rinsen, 1998 [English-Language].
The Profane Art: Essays and Reviews. New York: Dutton, 1983. Reprinted: New York: Persea, 1983.
Introduction, 1-8.
Essays
"'At Least I Have Made a Woman of Her': Images of Women in Yeats, Lawrence, Faulkner," 35-62. Reprinted In: Georgia Review Spring 1983.
"Charles Dodgson's Golden Hours," 82-89. Reprinted From: English Language Notes 20(Dec. 1982): 109-118. Also Reprinted In: Soaring with the Dodo: Essays on Lewis Carroll's Life and Art. Ed. Edward Guiliano and James R. Kincaid. Charlotteville, VA: U of Virginia P, 1982.
"Imaginary Cities: America," 9-34.
"John Updike's American Comedies," 90-105. Reprinted From: Modern Fiction Studies 21( Fall 1975): 459-72.
"The Magnanimity of Wuthering Heights," 63-81. Reprinted From: Critical Inquiry 9( Winter 1983) 435-449.
"Notes on Failure," 106-121. Reprinted From: Hudson Review 35( Summer 1982): 231-245.
Reviews
"Anne Sexton: Self-Portrait in Poetry and Letters," 165-183. Reprinted From: New York Times Book Review.
"Before God Was Love: The Short Stories of Paul Bowles," 128-131. Reprinted From: New York Times Book Review.
"Colette's Purgatory," 132-139. Reprinted From: New Republic.
"Flannery O'Connor: Self-Portrait in Letters," 195-204.
"Geza Csath's Garden" The Contours of Surrealism," 140-146. Reprinted From: New Republic.
"The Interior Castle: The Art of Jean Stafford's Short Fiction," 123-127. Reprinted From: Shenandoah 30(Winter 1979): 61-64.
"Legendary Jung," 159-164. Reprinted From: New Republic.
"The Mysticism of Simone Weil," 147-158. Reprinted From: New Republic.
"Sacred and Profane in Iris Murdoch," 165-183. Reprinted From: New Republic.
Where I've Been, and Where I'm Going: Essays, Reviews, and Prose. New York: Plume, 1999.
Part I. Where Is an Author?
"The Aesthetics of Fear," 26-35.
"Art and Ethics?--The F(U)tility of Art," 36-45.
"Art and 'Victim Art,'" 69-75.
"'In Olden Times, When Wishing Was Having . . . ': Classic and Contemporary Fairy Tales," 9-25.
"On Fiction in Fact," 76-79.
The Romance of Art: Four Brief Pieces:
"The Artist as Perpetual Antagonist," 61-62.
"First Principles," 50-52.
"The Romance of Art," 46-49.
"Transformations of Play," 53-60.
"Where Is an Author?," 3-8.
"'Zero at the Bone': Despair as Sin and Enlightenment," 63-68.
Part II. "I Had No Other Thrill or Happiness": Reviews, Review-Essays, Journalism.
"After the Road: The Art of Jack Kerouac," 118-130.
"American Views: Elizabeth Hardwick," 222-231.
"Bellow's Portraits," 157-161.
"The Enigmatic Art of Paul Bowles," 139-144.
"Exile and Homeland: Brian Moore," 181-185.
"F. Scott Fitzgerald Revisited," 83-94.
"Haunted Sylvia Plath," 131-138.
"Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s Colored People," 166-171.
"'I Had No Other Thrill or Happiness': The Literature of Serial Killers," 243-266.
"Inside the Locked Room: P.D. James," 191-202.
"Jean Stafford: Biography as Pathography," 145-152.
"John Edgar Wideman: Memoir and Fiction," 172-180.
"John Updike's Rabbit," 157-160.
"Lost in Boxing," 208-213.
"The Miniaturist Art of Grace Paley," 214-221.
"Raymond Chandler: Genre and 'Art,'" 95-113.
"Rene Magritte: Art Contra Art," 114-117.
Three American Gothics:
"Jeffrey Dahmer, November 1994," 232-234.
"Mike Tyson, July 1997," 237-242.
"Timothy James McVeigh, May 1995," 235-236.
"To Bedlam: Anne Sexton," 153-156.
"Updike Toward the End of Time," 186-190.
Part III. "The Madness of Art": Essays and Introductions.
"The Artist Looks at Nature: Some Works of Charles Sheeler (1883-1965)," 348-354.
"Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman: A Celebration," 323-325.
"Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, 1942: Painting and Poem," 344-347.
"The Essential Emily Dickinson," 280-290.
"Killer Kids," 326-338.
"'The Madness of Art': Henry James's 'The Middle Years,'" 291-295.
"Rediscovering Harold Frederic's The Damnation of Theron Ware," 304-310.
"The Riddle of Christina Rosetti's 'Goblin Market,'" 296-303.
"'Then All Collapsed': Tragic Melville," 269-279.
"Tragic Conrad: Heart of Darkness and The Secret Sharer," 311-322.
"Workings of Grace: Flannery O'Connor's 'The Artificial Nigger,'" 339-343.
Part IV. Where I've Been, and Where I'm Going: Prefaces, Afterwords.
"American Abroad," 370-371.
"Expensive People: The Confessions of a 'Minor Character,'" 361-364.
"Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang," 374-376.
"'Ghost Girls,'" 383.
"Mark of Satan," 379.
"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Selected Early Short Stories: Afterword," 357-360.
"Why Don't You Come Live with Me It's Time," 372-373.
"Will You Always Love Me?," 380-382.
"Wonderland Revisited," 365-369.
"You Petted Me, and I Followed You Home," 377-378.
(Woman) Writer: Occasions and Opportunities. New York: Dutton, 1988.
Short Story Into Film," 316-321.Preface: Occasions and Opportunities, xi-xiii.
Part 1. Does The Writer Exist?
"Against Nature," 66-76.
"The Art of Self-Criticism," 33-40.
"Beginnings," 3-21. Reprinted From: New York Times Book Review July 1985. Reprinted In: Michigan Quarterly Review Winter 1987.
"Does the Writer Exist?," 45-52.
"The Dream of the 'Sacred Text,'" 41-44.
"Literature as Pleasure, Pleasure as Literature," 53-65.
"(Woman) Writer: Theory and Practice," 22-32.
Part 2. Wonderlands
"Frankenstein's Fallen Angel," 106-122.
"Jane Eyre: An Introduction," 123-137.
"Jekyll/Hyde," 198-204.
"Kafka as Storyteller," 205-222.
"Looking for Thoreau," 152-162.
"Moby Dick: An American Book of Wonders," 138-151.
"Pleasure, Duty, Redemption Then and Now: Susan Warner's Diana," 190-197.
"'Soul at the White Heat': The Romance of Emily Dickinson's Poetry," 163-189.
"Wonderlands," 79-105.
Part 3. In The Ring
"Blood, Neon, and Failure in the Desert," 254-267.
"Mike Tyson," 225-253.
"Tyson/Biggs: Postscript," 268-276.
Part 4. A Miscellany
"Annie Johnson: A 'Lost' New England Artist," 279-285.
"Budapest Journal: May 1980," 329-345.
"'Food' as Poetry," 310-315.
"George Bellows: The Boxing Paintings," 294-300.
"The Hemingway Mystique," 301-309.
"'Life, Vigor, Fire': The Watercolors of Winslow Homer," 286-293.
"Meeting the Gorbachevs," 352-362
"'State-of-the-Art Car': The Ferrari Testarossa," 322-328.
"Visions of Detroit," 346-351.
"'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?' and Smooth Talk:
Part 5. Selves and Pseudonymous Selves
"Five Prefaces:
, 369-371.Bellefleur
Marya: A Life, 376-378.
Mysteries of Winterthurn, 372-375.
them, 365-368.
You Must Remember This, " 379-382.
"Pseudonymous Selves," 383-398.