Elizabeth Smart, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept

Andrew Lesk (University of Toronto)

Ed. by Wendy Roy, University of Saskatchewan
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.1.2: Canadian Writing and Culture (Anglophone): The Twentieth Century and beyond, 1900-present.
Vol. editors: Sarah Henzi (Simon Fraser University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Glen Nichols (Mount Allison University), Wendy Roy (University of Saskatchewan), Denis Salter (McGill University), Karis Shearer (University of British Columbia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1945

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Canada (Country of Origin)

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Novel

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A much-acclaimed work,

By Grand Central Station

achieved a certain notoriety upon its appearance. Termed by one critic to be an “adroit piece of home-wrecking”, it nevertheless received resounding praise from all quarters. The early praise did not sustain the novel’s literary reputation, however, and it soon fell from public view. A semi-autobiographical prose work, poetic and allusive, the novel is concerned with the narrator’s love for a married man (paralleling Smart’s affair with the married George Barker). The simple plot – a woman yearns for a man she has not yet met; meets him, and his wife; falls in love; follows him to Ottawa and New York; despairs – traverses little more than a hundred pages. The novel, ultimately, is not about space or place but rather the…

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1025 words

Citation: Lesk, Andrew. "By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 April 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16763, accessed 31 October 2024.]

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Elizabeth Smart, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept

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