Warren's reputation as one of the most versatile and talented of America's men of letters has grown steadily since the publication of his first work in 1929. Although he achieved instant recognition among scholars as a critic, poet, and essayist, popular acceptance of his work was not forthcoming until the 1946 publication of All the King's Men . As Leonard Casper and Charles H. Bohner have noted, this situation was the probable result of financial disasters at home and wartime conditions abroad. Warren's first book, John Brown: The Making of a Martyr (1929), reached bookstores during the stockmarket crash; Night Rider (1939) was published as Hitler entered Prague; and At Heaven's Gate (1943) was largely ignored at the height of America's military involvement in Europe during World War II. Many of Warren's contributions have gained for him international literary fame, especially his contributions to literary criticism. In many ways, however, he has never wandered far from his Southern heritage, often drawing upon it for the framework of his novels, which stress the painful acquisition of knowledge and the brutish state of ignorance. Despite his Southern settings, Warren has so constructed his material that it easily transcends any narrow, sectional view of life and arrives, instead, at a universal view from which many of the basic facets of human experience may be viewed.
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