[This entry was updated by Douglas Fowler (Florida State University) from his entry in DLB 173: American Novelists Since World War II, Fifth Series.] E. L. Doctorow's narrative art is a distinctive fusion of moral involvement and poetic transformation....

One of the most celebrated and controversial novelists of the past two decades, E. L. Doctorow has an uncanny ability to reach both the general audience (The Book of Daniel, Welcome to Hard Times, and Ragtime have been made into movies) and the...

"It was juggling that had got me where I was . . . . I practiced my juggling. I juggled anything, Spaldeens, stones, oranges, empty green Coca-Cola bottles, I juggled rolls we stole hot from the bins in the Pechter Bakery wagons, and since I juggled so...

As Matthew Henry noted in Critique, "E.L. Doctorow has made a career out of historical fiction, and he is renowned for both examining and rewriting the American past … because for Doctorow there is no fact or fiction, only...

Edgar Lawrence Doctorow (born January 6, 1931, New York, New York) is the author of several critically acclaimed novels that blend history and social criticism. Although he had written books for years, it was not until the publication of The Book of...

WHEN EDGAR LAWRENCE DOCTOROW was writing Ragtime (1975), his most celebrated novel, he puzzled over one tiny point of American history. He wanted to move his character from Depression-weary New York City to Lowell, Mass. via trolley, "from one town to the next, tossing...

Monarch Notes 01-01-1963 Life And Works Of E. L. Doctorow E. L. Doctorow, carrying a stuffed plastic bag, got on the elevator at the ninth floor. He turned his back to my daughter and me, faced the button panel, and punched B for basement....

Compiled as testament to the “belief in the story as a system of knowledge,” E.L. Doctorow’s book of essays provides a superb overview both of American literature and of the themes the author has taken up over his long and prolific career. Like his earlier...

Compiled as testament to the “belief in the story as a system of knowledge,” E.L. Doctorow’s book of essays provides a superb overview both of American literature and of the themes the author has taken up over his long and prolific career. Like his earlier...

In the following essay, Matterson addresses the ideas about writing suggested by the stories in Doctorow's Lives of the Poets.

In the following essay, Cooper examines the political concerns of Doctorow's work.

In the following essay, Parks applies recent critical theory to a study of the political and historical elements of Doctorow's fiction.