Earthly Creatures is a collection of short fiction by Charles R. Jackson published in 1953 by Farrar, Straus and Young.
Stories Preface: A note to the reader by Charles Jackson. “The Boy Who Ran Away (Harper’s Bazaar, November 1952) “Romeo” “The Break” (Collier's, September 1, 1953) “A Sunday Drive” (1939) “Money” “Parting at Morning” (Today's Women, May 1953) “The Cheat” “The Sleeper Awakened” “Old Men and Boys” “The Outlander”
Background and publication Jackson's motivation for writing this short story collection was two-fold: his desperate financial situation, and his desire to maintain his presence in the literary community.Bailey, 2013 p. 315: “...to make money and remind the world of his existence.”Connelly, 2001 p. 31-32
Ballantine Books and Farrar, Straus and Young arranged to have the collection issued in both hardcover ($1.50 retail) and paperback (35 cents). Sales were boosted by a number of good reviews: 85,000 of the mass market paperbacks were sold.Bailey, 2013 p. 315: The paperback edition sold about 85,000 copies. See here for favorable remarks by critic Harvey Breit.Connelly, 2001 p. 196
Literary critic John W. Crowley reports “Sales were light overall and almost exclusively in paperback, making the hardcover format (with jacket copy not elsewhere available) by far the rarest of Jackson's books.Crowley, 2011 p. 268 (footnote 9), p. 277: footnote 9 here.
Reception Critical approval of the collection was widespread, even “generous.”Bailey, 2013 p. 315: “Critics...were mostly generous.”Connelly, 2001 p. 31: “The ten stories, one of which features Don Birnam, did receive some favorable reviews.” And: p. 196: “Earthly Creatures received generally favorable reviews.” Critic Harvey Breit at the New York Times Book Review declared: “We have never seen Mr. Jackson better...” October 4, 1953.
Budd Schulberg in New York Times Book Review: “A giftedly readable and provocative collection...it is in a far deeper sense that this fine group of stories enriches us...”Connelly, 2001 p. 196: See here for excerpt from Schulberg's reviewBailey, 2013 p. 315Schulberg, 1953 Willian Peden at the Saturday Review: “The central character of most of the short stories in Charles Jackson's Earthly Creatures is his own worst enemy...We watch him, in story after story, methodically going about the business of destroying himself.”Connelly, 2001 p. 31: See here for longer quote from review.Peden, 1953
Jackson's himself did not think highly of the volume; only two of the stories, “The Break” and “The Boy Who Ran Awary” did he consider satisfactory.Bailey, 2013 p. 314: Jackson “wanted it known that he didn't think very highly of the book.” Jackson wrote in the preface he was “fully (perhaps I should say ‘bitterly’) conscious of the knowledge they are somewhat less than the ideal in a form I love.”Bailey, 2013 p. 314: “...the only two stories he was satisfied with were “The Boy Who Ran Away” and “The Break.”Connelly, 2001 p. 171: “....only two, Jackson admitted, were satisfactory...” And p. 172
Despite Jackson's hopes to the contrary Earthly Creatures “did not revive the career of a writer still largely known for a first novel,” namely The Lost Weekend (1944).
Theme Biographer Mark Connelly writes:
Footnotes
Sources Bailey, Blake. 2013. Farther and Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of Charles Jackson. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. Breit, Harvey. 1950. “Talk With Charles Jackson” The New York Times Book Review, April 30, 1950. 1953. Connelly, Mark. 2001. Deadly Closets: The Fiction of Charles Jackson. University Press of America, Lanham, New York, Oxford. Crowley, John W. 2011. The Dark Side of Charles Jackson's Sunnier Side. American Literary Realism Vol. 43, No. 3 (Spring 2011), pp. 259-278. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/amerlitereal.43.3.0259?seq=1 Accessed 30 May, 2025. Jackson, Charles R.. 2013. The Sunnier Side and Other Stories. Introduction by Blake Bailey. Vintage Books, New York. Peden, William. 1953. “Self-Destructors” Saturday Review, October 10, 1953. Schulberg, Budd. 1953, “Into the Dark Caves; EARTHLY CREATURES. Ten Stories by Charles Jackson.” New York Times Book Review, September 13, 1953. https://www.nytimes.com/1953/09/13/archives/into-the-dark-caves-earthly-creatures-ten-stories-by-charles.html Accessed 20 June, 2025.