Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal, called “America’s Foremost Man of Letters” by the American Academy of Achievement, is a novelist, essayist, playwright and social critic renowned for his urbane wit, supreme self-confidence, astute commentary about politics and literature and extraordinary body of work spanning six decades. He has written seven novels about American history, including Burr, Washington, D.C., 1876, Lincoln and The Golden Age, and several satirical novels lauded for their progressive themes, including Myra Breckinridge, Myron, Duluth and The Smithsonian Institution. Vidal is also the author of dozens of television plays and film scripts, including Suddenly Last Summer, The Catered Affair and Ben Hur, as well as three mystery novels written under the pseudonym Edgar Box. In addition, he has written hundreds of essays, gathered in several best-selling volumes published between 1962 and 2008. He received the National Book Award in 1993 for United States: Essays, 1952-1992, and has published two memoirs, Palimpsest (1995) and Point to Point Navigation (2006). Vidal’s other plays include Visit to a Small Planet, The Best Man, Romulus and An Evening with Richard Nixon.