If it wasn’t for John Kennedy Toole’s mom, his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel would likely have been lost to time. The novel’s author was a prodigy. John Kennedy Toole, who was born in New ...

I kept thinking, for two reasons, of Smith’s story while rereading A Confederacy of Dunces over the last few weeks. First, both Ignatius J. Reilly and John Kennedy Toole, Ignatius’ creator ...

John Kennedy Toole teaches an English class to Spanish-speaking draftees in Puerto Rico, c1961–63 while serving in the US Army. During his deployment in Puerto Rico, he started writing A ...

On March 26 1969, on a quiet country road outside Biloxi, Mississippi, John Kennedy Toole took his own life. Aged just 31, the literary professor and author left behind two unpublished novels ...

On March 26, 1969, John Kennedy Toole used a garden hose to pump exhaust fumes into his car. He wouldn’t live to see the success of his novel, “A Confederacy of Dunces,” which he had tried ...

At the core of this zany, irreverent and sometimes hilarious novel lies Ignatius J. Reilly, a man who thinks highly of himself but in reality shows no potential.

Dunces, of course, has always been shrouded in heartbreak.Its publication came 11 years after author John Kennedy Toole committed suicide at the age of 32, and it reached print only because of the ...

Tom Bissell writes about the novel “A Confederacy of Dunces,” by John Kennedy Toole, and how its reception has changed since its publication forty years ago.

The statue of Ignatius J. Reilly, the main character from John Kennedy Toole's Pultizer-winning novel 'A Confederacy of Dunces,' under the iconic clock at the former D.H. Holmes department store ...

At the core of this zany, irreverent and sometimes hilarious novel lies Ignatius J. Reilly, a man who thinks highly of himself but in reality shows no potential.