(July 27, 1916- ) Born in Lexington, Kentucky. Graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1938, and received master's degree in 1939; also did graduate work at Columbia (1939-41). Wrote for Partisan Review, Harper's, and other journals. In 1963 co-founded New York Review of Books, to which she continues to contribute. Author of novels The Ghostly Lover (1945), The Simple Truth (1955), and Sleepless Nights (1979), and nonfiction A View of My Own: Essays in Literature and Society (1962), Seduction and Betrayal: Women and Literature (1974), Bartleby in Manhattan and Other Essays (1984), Sight Readings (1998), American Fictions (1999), and Herman Melville (2000).