Once genuinely canonical English-language authors who are now all but forgotten

Jacqueline Susann

Canonical? That doesn’t sound right applied to this.

Do people even read anymore? I think there are very few modern authors that the general public would know off-hand really. They’d probably say Britney Spears.

Katherine Anne Porter.

Walter Pater

Porter and especially Pater are still pretty canonical (listed on college syllabuses, readily available in print). I'm thinking more along the lines of James Branch Cabell or Booth Tarkington.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Steinbeck

I think Katherine Anne Porter has stood the test of time quite well. Pale Horse, Pale Rider even had a bit of a revival during the pandemic.

Emerson gets taught in high schools, for Pete's sake! Try harder, R7.

James Gould Cozzens

John Dos Passos

James T. Farrell

Edna Ferber

Lillian Hellman

William Inge

George Meredith

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

John Greenleaf Whittier

THomas Wolfe was a hack. His "Man in Full" was a preview of American fascism.

Tom Wolfe as well as Thomas Wolfe

You don't hear much about John Updike anymore. Every now and the there is talk of a Rabbit movie/show, but that's about it.

All I do is read. I don’t feel I’m missing anything in life.

When was the last time you had a discussion about The Winter of Our Discontent?

Here, R18

that guy who wrote MAUS

Is that right, r9? Well, good. She should be widely read

I know Hellman was a despicable person with the Stalinism and lies about her role as a Saviour during the holocaust (!), but The Children’s Hour and Toys in the Attic are both great. The latter less so and maybe a little too inspired by Tennessee Williams.

Wolfe isn't "forgotten."

O'Hara always was not canonical.

Millay and Teasdale did not date well, although when considering women authors and their era they remain read and discussed.

Pater? He comes back around, but it's not like he was widely read even in his heyday. (I still consult him.)

I live in a retiree area, R3. People here read a lot.

R20: Art Spiegelman's MAUS has never been out of print since 1986, when it was first published. It also hit the bestseller lists again in 2022, after it was considered significant enough to be banned by the Tennesssee School Board. It won just about every literary prize going and is considered a timeless classic.

Saul Bellow

I agree, R16. After Updike’s death in early 2009, it appeared that many of his books went out of print and I stopped seeing his stuff in bookstores.

I love John Updike’s The Witches of Eastwick and the sequel, The Widows of Eastwick. And the Rabbit series is quite an achievement.

I never realized how…unattractive he was. I had really never seen a picture of him and had always imagined him much better-looking.

Elinor Glyn

Fannie Hurst

Carl Sandberg

William Saroyan

James Agee

Wallace Stegner

Every third book I read is by Patrick Dennis - some from my parrnts shelf, some from ebay. Most out of print. Many are of their time. Some - Genius, How Firm A Foundation, Pink Hotel, Little Me - are very fun & funny.

R3/. Mary Renault - the best of the greek myth writers - in print?

Steinbeck is far from forgotten R8. Several of his novels—especially Of Mice & Men, The Grapes of Wrath, and East of Eden—are regularly discussed and recommended on Reddit, BookTok and YouTube. East of Eden, in particular, seems to have been embraced by a new generation of readers.

Pearl S. Buck