Key critical books and bibliographies for the study of Norman Mailer are arranged chronologically. If you are looking to purchase books by or about Norman Mailer, click the links below, or search.
- Barry Leeds, The Structured Vision of Norman Mailer (1969).
- Donald Kaufmann, Norman Mailer: The Countdown (The First Twenty Years) (1969).
- Robert Lucid, Ed., Norman Mailer: The Man and His Work (1971). Essays.
- Leo Braudy, Ed., Twentieth Century Views of Norman Mailer (1972). Essays.
- Richard Poirier, Norman Mailer (1972).
- Robert Solotaroff, Down Mailer’s Way (1974).
- Laura Adams, Ed., Will the Real Norman Mailer Stand Up (1974). Essays.
- Laura Adams, Norman Mailer: A Comprehensive Bibliography (1974).
- Jean Radford, Norman Mailer: A Critical Study (1975).
- Philip Bufithis, Norman Mailer (1978).
- Andrew Gordon, An American Dreamer: A Psychoanalytic Study of the Fiction of Norman Mailer (1980).
- Robert J. Begiebing, Acts of Regeneration: Allegory and Archetype in the Works of Norman Mailer (1981).
- Hilary Mills, Mailer: A Biography (1982).
- Peter Manso, Mailer: His Life and Times (1985).
- J. Michael Lennon, Ed., Critical Essays on Norman Mailer (Critical Essays on American Literature) (1986).
- Joseph Wenke, Mailer’s America (1987).
- J. Michael Lennon, Ed., Conversations with Norman Mailer (1988).
- Robert J. Begiebing, Toward a New Synthesis: John Fowles, John Gardner, and Norman Mailer (1989).
- Nigel Leigh, Radical Fictions and the Novels of Norman Mailer (1990).
- Carl Rollyson, The Lives of Norman Mailer: A Biography (1991).
- Robert Merrill, Norman Mailer (1992).
- Michael K. Glenday, Norman Mailer (1995).
- Mary V. Dearborn, Mailer (1999). Biography.
- Michael Lennon and Donna Pedro Lennon, Norman Mailer Works and Days (2000). Biography-Bibliography.
- Morris Dickstein, Leopards in the Temple: The Transformation of American Fiction, 1945-1970 (2002).
- Barry Leeds, The Enduring Vision of Norman Mailer (2002).
- Harold Bloom, Norman Mailer (Bloom’s Modern Critical Views) (2003).
In Works and Days
- “Norman Mailer” — Mailer’s entry in Current Biography for 1948 — his first appearance in a standard reference work — built from earlier article-interviews and a Rinehart press release.
- Donald Kaufmann — Kaufmann was a professor at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, who became friendly with Mailer when he spoke at the University in April 1965.
- Laura Adams — American literary scholar and early Mailer bibliographer; editor of Will the Real Norman Mailer Please Stand Up (1974) and author of Existential Battles: The Growth of…
- Robert J. Begiebing — Novelist and Mailer scholar; author of Norman Mailer at 100: Conversations, Correlations, Confrontations (LSU Press, 2022), winner of the Robert F.
- Hilary Mills — American journalist and author of Mailer: A Biography (1982), the first full-length biography of Mailer; she also interviewed him for the Saturday Review in January 1981.
- Mailer: A Biography — Hilary Mills’s Mailer: A Biography (Empire Books, 1982), the first book-length biography of Mailer; valuable for its interviews with several of his wives and many…
- Peter Manso — Editor of Running Against the Machine (1969); later the author of the major oral biography Mailer: His Life and Times (1985).
- J. Michael Lennon — Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer, archivist, and close friend; Emeritus Professor of English at Wilkes University and Chair of the Editorial Board of The Mailer…