Publication History
Lowry had already published one novel, Ultramarine (1933), by the time he was working on Under the Volcano; in 1936, Lowry wrote a short story called "Under the Volcano" containing the kernel of what developed into the novel. In 1940, Lowry hired an agent, Harold Matson, to find a publisher for the manuscript but found nothing but rejection. In 1944, the manuscript was nearly lost in a fire at Lowry's shack in British Columbia. His second wife, Margerie, rescued the unfinished novel, but all of Lowry's other works in progress were lost in the blaze.
The novel was finally finished in 1945 and immediately sent to many publishers. In late winter, while travelling in Mexico, Lowry learned the novel had been accepted by two publishing companies: Reynal & Hitchcock in the United States and Jonathan Cape in the United Kingdom. Following critical reports from readers, Cape had reservations about publishing and wrote to Lowry on 29 November 1945 asking him to make drastic cuts. Lowry's lengthy reply, dated 2 January 1946, was a passionate defence of the book in which he sensed he had created a work of lasting greatness: "Whether it sells or not seems to me either way a risk. But there is something about the destiny of the creation of the book that seems to tell me it just might go on selling a very long time." The letter includes a detailed summary of the book's key themes and how the author intended each of the 12 chapters to work, and has been included as an introduction in some editions.
The book has been republished many times and translated into many languages since its first publication in 1947. In 1998 it was rated as number 11 on the list of the 100 best novels of the 20th century compiled by the Modern Library. TIME included the novel in its list of "100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present", calling it a "vertiginous picture of self-destruction, seen through the eyes of a man still lucid enough to report to us all the harrowing particulars."
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