This also makes me think of Hardwick’s vitriolic takedown of Anaïs Nin’s first book, Under A Glass Bell. Why does she hate me so much? Nin wonders in her diary after the review. There’s a lot of this disgust and hatred towards Nin by other women writers. I also wonder at this—perhaps it’s because Edmund Wilson was now courting Nin, and writing about her self-published book in The New Yorker, of all places. Perhaps Hardwick was playing mean girl/defensive best friend to Mary M. God I love literary gossip.
