WRITER

Gore Vidal

1925 - 2012

Photo of Gore Vidal

Icon of person Gore Vidal

Eugene Luther Gore Vidal ( vih-DAHL; born Eugene Louis Vidal, October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer and public intellectual known for his acerbic epigrammatic wit. His novels and essays interrogated the social and sexual norms he perceived as driving American life. Vidal was heavily involved in politics, and unsuccessfully sought office twice as a Democratic Party candidate, first in 1960 to the United States House of Representatives (for New York), and later in 1982 to the United States Senate (for California). A grandson of U.S. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Gore Vidal has received more than 6,997,833 page views. His biography is available in 63 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 61 in 2019). Gore Vidal is the 1,626th most popular writer (down from 1,498th in 2019), the 2,014th most popular biography from United States (down from 1,933rd in 2019) and the 177th most popular American Writer.

Memorability Metrics

  • 7.0M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 57.80

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 63

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 2.37

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 6.58

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

City and Pillar
1968
In a yellow wood
1947
Dangerous voyage
1946
A thirsty evil
United States
From the poignant realisation as an adult of the cruel brutality of childhood in 'The Robin', man then comes face to face with himself as a boy in 'A Moment of Green Laurel': both stories combining the nostalgia and fear that haunt us all in old age. Meanwhile, in 'Erlinda and Mr Coffin', Southern etiquette is unashamedly turned upside down in a tale of amateur theatricals reminiscent of Dickens and Victorian melodrama. Yet it is in 'Three Stratagems', 'The Zenner Trophy', 'Pages from an Abandoned Journal' and 'The Ladies in the Library' (with more than a hint of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice in the latter) that we see Vidal as we know him best: cynical and provocative in these subtle tales of what was known in those days as 'sexual inversion'.
19564 / 5
A search for the king
1950
The season of comfort
Autobiographical fiction
Dealing with the topics which obsess the young--from politics to difficult relations, adolescent love and the beginnings of a career--this is the original, fictionalized version of Vidal's memoir "Palimpsest".--fantasticfiction.co.uk.
1949

Among WRITERS

Among writers, Gore Vidal ranks 1,626 out of 7,302. Before him are Marquis de Custine, Ibn al-Farid, Jean de Meun, Mary of Jesus of Ágreda, Adamantios Korais, and Sebastian Haffner. After him are Anonymus, Oribasius, Posidippus, Jurji Zaydan, Ludwig Börne, and Fernando del Paso.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1925, Gore Vidal ranks 111. Before him are Robert Hardy, Princess Regina of Saxe-Meiningen, Pierre Bérégovoy, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Michel Bouquet, and Alexandre do Nascimento. After him are Luciano Leggio, Aliya Moldagulova, Warren Christopher, Masanori Tokita, Max Morlock, and Innokenty Smoktunovsky. Among people deceased in 2012, Gore Vidal ranks 86. Before him are Miguel de la Madrid, Maurice Herzog, Neslişah Sultan, Galina Vishnevskaya, Maurice André, and Hans Werner Henze. After him are Meles Zenawi, Rajesh Khanna, Miljan Miljanić, Estanislau Basora, Marcos Alonso, and Giorgio Chinaglia.

Others Born in 1925

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Others Deceased in 2012

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In United States

Among people born in United States, Gore Vidal ranks 2,014 out of 20,380. Before him are James Avery (1945), Vernon L. Smith (1927), Jennifer Garner (1972), Darren Aronofsky (1969), Kim Peek (1951), and Thomas Mitchell (1892). After him are Robert Trujillo (1964), Bill Tilden (1893), Olympia Dukakis (1931), Bob Saget (1956), Jessica Alba (1981), and Woody Guthrie (1912).

Others born in United States

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Among WRITERS In United States

Among writers born in United States, Gore Vidal ranks 177. Before him are Dean Koontz (1945), Langston Hughes (1902), Clarissa Pinkola Estés (1945), Natalie Clifford Barney (1876), Philip José Farmer (1918), and Alice Walker (1944). After him are Ira Levin (1929), Martin Gardner (1914), Theodore Sturgeon (1918), Upton Sinclair (1878), Fredric Jameson (1934), and R. L. Stine (1943).

American born Writers

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