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1066

The invasion of England. Out of the St-Malo region (Normandy) accompanies a certain Pinco William the Conqueror. This Pinchon family still exists, mainly in Brittany and Normandy, under the names of 'Pinçon' or 'Pinchon'. There is a 300 m (1,200 ft) hill in the Calvados region called Mont Pinçon, taken by the British after heavy fights on August 6, 1944. The name is not unusual in France: in Louis-Ferdinand Céline's Journey to the End of the Night (1932) figures a rather nasty army officer called Pinçon.

1532-1533

Nicholas Pinchon (1498-1534) is elected one of the two London sheriffs. This Pynchon is the oldest to be mentioned in Joseph Charles Pynchon's family record. His great-grandson William will be the first Pynchon on American soil. The family settles in and around Writtle, Essex.

1630

(March, 29) John Winthrop, gouvernour of the Massachusetts Bay Colony leaves England for the American east coast. In his company, William Pynchon (1590-1662) from Springfield, Essex. Being a shareholder and patentee, William Pynchon will become eventually treasurer of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He is the founder of both Roxbury (1630, 2 miles south of Boston at the time) and Springfield (1636).

1650

William Pynchon publishes The Meritorious Price Of Our Redemption, considered heretical and therefore banned and burnt in Boston. It is the first case of book burning in the new world.

1626-1703

William's son John grows rich as a fur tradesman. He took the initiative in founding several outposts. He is also a magistrate in Springfield, as his father before him. His records as a magistrate are preserved, as is a part of his correspondence. The Pynchon family is at its most influential now --local Indians call the immigrants 'Pynchon's men'. After John's death, the political influence will gradually diminish (as well as the family's economic power; most of the Pynchon men became lawyers, doctors or merchantmen).

1652

William Pynchon returns to England after handing over his business and properties to his son John. He keeps on defending himself and publishes several other theological books. He dies in October 1662 in Writtle, Essex.

1760 (ca.)

Yale alumnus Joseph Pynchon becomes a merchant in Guilford, and eventually in New York. He is a tory, opposing the movement towards independence in Connecticut. He marries a Sarah Ruggles. Since their son was born, there have been at least 6 persons called Thomas Ruggles Pynchon. The first one is a doctor who dies at 36 (he fell off a horse).

1787

(January, 25) The Federal Arsenal (built in Springfield in 1777) is attacked during Daniel Shays' rebellion. William Pynchon (1740-1818) served as a major in the federal army that ended Shays's rebellion. He was the last one to live in the Old Pynchon House.

1851

Nathaniel Hawthorne publishes The House of the Seven Gables. Reverend Thomas Ruggles Pynchon (1823-1904) writes the author a letter, complaining about the 'abuse' of the 'Pyncheon' name. This rev. Thomas Ruggles Pynchon will become the ninth president of Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., where he teaches science and religion. In 1881 he publishes an Introduction to Chemical Physics. His brother William is the great-grandfather of author Thomas Pynchon.

1885

Publication of Joseph Charles Pynchon's Record of the Pynchon Family in England and America (revised by W. F. Adams in 1898).

1876-1910

William Pynchon (the Reverend's nephew) settles in East Norwich. He was a surveyor and worked mainly on what was to become Jones Beach. He's the grandfather of our author. His son Thomas was born in 1908.

1920's

One of the main Wall Street stockbroker firms is Pynchon & Company. Active on the New York Stock Exchange, they invest mainly in technology (aviation — electric utilities) and motion pictures (Fox).  The firm has several publications on investment opportunities: in 1929 they have a publication on The Aviation Industry. After the 1929 Wall Street crash, the firm will be put into receivership with the Irving Trust Company.

1937

(May, 8) Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr, born in Glen Cove, Long Island, New York, oldest son of Thomas R. Pynchon (1908 - 1995) and Katherine Bennett. His father is a surveyor and a highway engineer and served as Oyster Bay Town supervisor. Thomas Pynchon has a brother, John, and a sister Judith. The Pynchon family moves to East Norwich, Oyster Bay, Long Island in 1941 or 1942.

1953

Thomas Pynchon publishes some stories and columns in Purple and Gold, the Oyster Bay High School gazette. His column (which he signs with Roscoe (or Boscoe) Stein, and Bosc) The Voice of The Hamster gets censored. He is class salutatorian and receives an award for the senior attaining the highest marks in English. From the 1953 yearbook:

PYNCHON, THOMAS
"Pynch" ; P & G ; Yearbook ; Trade Fair 2,
3, 4 ; Sr. Play student director ; Spanish
Club 6, 4 ; Honor Society 3, 4 ; likes pizza ;
dislikes hypocrites ; pet possession, a type-
writer ; aspires to be a physicist.

1953-1955

Mr. Pynchon enters Cornell University. Starting off in an engineering physics program, he switches during his sophomore year to English literature.

1955-1957

Mr. Pynchon interrupts his studies and takes a two year stint in the US Navy —his file got lost in a fire (Saint Louis)— which provides mr. Pynchon with some of his favorite characters (Pig Bodine) and settings (Malta). He may have served as a signal corpsman.

1957-1959

Returns to Cornell. Friends: Richard Fariña, Faith and Kirkpatrick Sale (Faith Sale would be one day Pynchon's editor for V. and Gravity's Rainbow), Jules Siegel, David Shetzline. Gets his degree, a B.A. in English Literature, in June 1959. May have been —though this is a bit unlikely— attending courses given by Vladimir Nabokov. He attended courses by Mike Abrams (18th centure literature) and Baxter Hathaway.

1959

(March) "The Small Rain", his first story, published in the Cornell Writer, Volume VI, number 2, pp. 14-32.

(Spring) "Mortality and Mercy in Vienna", second story, published in Epoch n° 9, pp. 195-213. This is the only story that will go uncollected in Slow Learner.

1959-1960

Lives in Greenwich Village. Applies for a Ford Foundation Fellowship in order to write an opera libretto, application which is turned down. He refuses a Wilson Fellowship. Onset to a musical, together with Kirkpatrick Sale, Minstrel Island.

1960

"Low-Lands", third story, published in New World Writing n° 16, pp. 85-108.

"Entropy", fourth story, published in Kenyon Review n° 22, pp. 277-292.

1960-1962

Mr Pynchon works for Boeing in Seattle. As a technical aide (and not as a technical writer, as is widely presumed), he writes an article in Aerospace Safety, "Togetherness", pp. 6-8 (December 1960). Author is "Thomas H. Pynchon". There's a rumour mr. Pynchon collaborated on the Minuteman missile.

1961

"Under the Rose", fifth story and an early version of V.'s Chapter 3 published in Noble Savage n° 3, pp. 223-251. It receives an O'Henry Award and is collected in Price Stories 1962: the O. Henry Awards. The introduction by Richard Poirier, discusses (also) Pynchon: the first article to be written about Thomas Pynchon.

(November, 2) His agent Candido Donadio asks for an endorsement on Joseph Heller's Catch-22. Thomas Pynchon writes back -on quadrille paper, as is, or was, his habit:

"I love it. I won't tell you how much, or why, because I always sound phony whenever I start running off at the mouth like a literary critic. But it is close to the finest novel I've ever read.
ps -- Who is this guy Heller and when is he going to write another one?"

In an undated letter to Heller, Donadio refers to the V. manuscript as World on a String.

1963

Finalising V., some letters between Pynchon (who lived in Mexico City at the time) and editor Faith Sale on the editing process. Publisher was Jonathan Lippincott, Philadelphia. The novel wins the William Faulkner Foundation Award (best début of the year, now called PEN Faulkner Award). The advance copies contain following text on the front cover:

"J. B. Lippincott Company takes pleasure in sending you this advance copy of what will almost certainly be the most original novel published in 1963. No novel we have put under contract in the last decade (remember To Kill a Mockingbird!) has stirred up as much advance excitement and passion within the house. It has been called everything from "an 'off-Broadway' novel" to "the most important piece of fiction written since 'Ulysses". We have no doubt that this astonishing first novel by an immensely talented young writer will be controversial and much discussed from the moment of its publication in March 1963."

1964

(December, 19) "The Secret Integration", his fifth story, published in The Saturday Evening Post (pp.: 36-37; 39; 42-44; 46-49; 51).

1965

(December) Esquire publishes "The World (This One), the Flesh (Mrs. Oedipa Maas), and the Testament of Pierce Inverarity", a fragment of The Crying of Lot 49 (pp. 170-173; 296; 298-303).

(December) A Gift of Books, recommendation of Oakley Hall's Warlock in Holiday vol. 38, nr. 6 (pp. 164-165).

First translation: V. is translated into Italian by Liana M. Johnson.

1966

(March) Publication of "The Shrink Flips", a second fragment of The Crying of Lot 49, in Cavalier, pp. 32-33; 88-92

Publication of Richard Fariña's Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me. The support notice is written by Pynchon (back flap of dust jacket). Mr. Pynchon was Fariña's best man at his wedding with Mimi Baez.

Publication of The Crying of Lot 49, mr. Pynchon's second novel, again at Lippincott's.

(June, 12) One year after the heavy race riots in Watts, LA, an essai, "A Journey Into The Mind of Watts", published in the New York Times Magazine (pp. 34-35; 78; 80-82; 84) -- editor at the time was Kirkpatrick Sale.

(July, 17) "Pros and Cohns", letter to the editor of The New York Times Book Review on the Gengis Cohen character in The Crying of Lot 49 (pp. 22; 24) .

1967

The Crying of Lot 49 wins the Richard and Hilda Rosenthal Foundation Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.

First translation into French: Plon (Paris, France) publishes V., translated by Minnie Danzas.

First translation into Swedish: Buden på nr 49, translated by Caj Lundgren.

First dissertation which also discusses Pynchon: Jesse P. Ritter, "Fearful Comedy: The Fiction of Joseph Heller, Gunter Grass, and the Social Surrealist Genre". University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas, United States (1967): DAI 28, 1447A.

1968

First translation into German: V. translated by Dietrich Stössel (Dusseldorf, Rauch).

First translation into Danish: Katalognummer nr 49 udbydes, translated by Arne Herløv Pedersen.

1969 (?)

Mr. Pynchon answers a letter from student Thomas F. Hirsch. Subject is V.'s Chapter 9, Mondaugen's Story. The year 1969 may be a typographical error.

"[...] I feel that the number done on the Herero head by the Germans is the same number done on the American Indian head by our own colonists and what is now being done on the Buddhist head in Vietnam by the Christian minority in Saigon and their advisors: the imposition of a culture valuing analysis and differentiation on a culture that valued unity and integration."

1973

(February, 28) Gravity's Rainbow, his third novel. The novel, dedicated to Richard Fariña, who suddenly died in 1966, shared the 1974 National Book Award with A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories, by I.B. Singer. The award was accepted for mr. Pynchon by comedian Irwin Corey. In its first year it sold 45,000 copies.

1974

The Pulitzer Prize Committee for the Fiction Award wishes, unanimously, to honor Gravity's Rainbow. Its advisory board advised strongly against it, considering the novel 'obscene'.

First monography on Pynchon, by Joseph Slade.

1975

Thomas Pynchon declines the William Dean Howells Medal (which crowns every 5 years the best US novel).

1976

First translation into Spanish: La Subasta del Lote 49, translated by Veronica Head.

1977

(March) Playboy article by Jules Siegel: "Who Is Thomas Pynchon And Why Did He Take Off With My Wife?"

1978

First translation into Dutch: De veiling van nr 49, (clumsily) translated by Ronald Jonkers.

1979

First Pynchon Notes issue, 'a newsletter'.

1983

Introduction to Richard Fariña's Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me.

1984

Publication of Slow Learner, a collection of his early stories. Mr. Pynchon writes a remarkable introduction.

(June) "Pynchon Remembers Fariña", (pp. 20-23), the Introduction reprinted in the Cornell Alumni News.

(October, 28) " Is It Ok To Be Luddite?", published in The New York Times Book Review.

Candida Donadio (d. February 2001) sells her correspondence with mr. Pynchon for $45,000 to collector Carter Burden. Mr. Pynchon had ended his professional relationship with Donadio in 1982.

1988

Receives a 5 year MacArthur Foundation genius grant. The file is closed.

(April, 10) "The Heart's Eternal Vow", a review of Gabriel Garcia Marquez' Love In Times of Cholera.

1989

(12 March) Letter: "Words for Salman Rushdie." New York Times Book Review 1, 28-29. (29)

1990

Publication of Vineland, dedicated to his parents. The novel, acclaimed as Pynchon's most readable for a large public so far, becomes a huge seller.

Pynchon marries his agent Melanie Jackson. Mr and mrs Pynchon have a son, Jackson. Melanie Jackson is the granddaughter of Robert Jackson, Chief Prosecutor for the United States at the Nurenberg Trials after World War 2, and great-granddaughter of Theodore Roosevelt.

In a letter to Fred Gardner, mr. Pynchon's agent states that the letters written by a Wanda Tinasky were 'definitely not (mr. Pynchon's) work'. This ends a controversy that began a few years earlier. In 2002, the story beyond the actual author is reconstructed.

1992

Introduction to the collected stories of Donald Barthelme.

1993

(June, 6) An essai on sloth: Nearer, My Couch, To Thee.

1994

(November 19-20) First International Conference ever entirely devoted to Pynchon: Schizophrenia and Social Control, organized by Eric Cassidy and Dan O'Hara, at the University of Warwick, UK

1995

Jacket notes for Spiked! The Music of Spike Jones.

Liner notes for rock band Lotion album Nobody's Cool.

First web site on Pynchon: the Pynchon Pomona pages at San Narciso College, California.

1997

Introduction to Jim Dodge's Stone Junction.

(April, 30) Henry Holt publishes a fifth novel, Mason & Dixon, dedicated to Melanie and Jackson. The publisher, Michael Naumann (later to become German minister of Culture) is upset when the novel is not nominated for the National Book Award. The publication is surrounded by a small hype. Publisher's Weekly reports that in a few months 150,000 copies have been sold.

(June) CNN tracks Pynchon down: he lives in Manhattan's Upper West Side. When he is filmed he contacts the channel by telephone and requests that the footage is not televized. Pynchon tells a CNN senior producer: "My belief is, 'recluse' is a code word generated by journalists meaning 'doesn't like to talk to reporters.'

2001

(February) The French translation of Mason & Dixon. Mr. Pynchon cooperated with the translators by fax during the translation.

2001

Ongoing rumours on a new novel, maybe on German mathematician David Hilbert. Main source for this is former publisher and friend Michael Naumann.

Publication of David Hajdu's Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña, and Richard Fariña. The author conducts an interview with Thomas Pynchon by fax.

(December) In the Japanese Playboy, a short comment on the events of 9-11. Some contest its authenticity (it is, however, duly mentioned in the Pynchon Notes ongoing bibliography).

2003

(May, 6) "Foreword" to George Orwell's 1984, a centennial edition. Check out the differences between Guardian article and book introduction.

2004

(January) First 'appearance' in The Simpsons, episode in which Pynchon plays himself. He says that he likes Marge's novel as much as he likes cameras.

2006

(November, 21) Against The Day. The first reviews are rather mixed.

2007

(June, 1) The Groupe de Recherche anglo-américaines de Tours organises the first conference on Against the Day.

2009

(April) Pynchon elected Fellow of The American Academy of Arts and Sciences

(August, 4) Inherent Vice is published. Mr Pynchon's voice is heard in a promotional trailer (see small quote below). The first reviews of this easy read, a noir mystery novel, are usually positive. From the trailer:

M-maybe you'll just wanna read the book: I-Inherent Vice, Penguin Press. 27.95 - 27.95?! Really? That used to be, like, three weeks of groceries, man. What year is this again?

Clifford Mead's Thomas Pynchon: A Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Materials, published in The Dalkey Archive of Bibliography Series, Elmwood Park, Illinois: 1989. (ISBN 0-916583-37-6) It contains all juvenilia, a collection of book covers, and of course a near complete overview of publications from and about Pynchon.

Matthew Winston is the author of the most quoted and translated article on Pynchon's life: "The Quest for Pynchon." Twentieth Century Literature, 21.3 (1975): 278 - 287.

Charles Hollander is the author of several articles tying Pynchon, his ancestors and family to Pynchon's themes. He was one of the first to remark that the Nabokov-Pynchon connection is not as trustworthy as many assume.

Luc Herman and John M. Krafft continue their research on the textual changes in V. which started with "Fast Learner: The V. Typescript at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin. " Texas Studies in Literature and Language (2007). The Center owns some of Pynchon's '60s letters.

The story preceding the publication of Gravity's Rainbow is told in a 2005 Bookforum article by Gerald Howard.

Stephen Michael Tomaske pointed out that the year 1969 in the Hirsch letter was propably a typo. The letter is published in David Seed's Fictional Labyrinths of Thomas Pynchon, MacMillan, London, 1980. Steve's massive Pynchon collection, containing 2,500 items was donated by his family to the San Marino, California Huntington Library in 2002 and 2009.

The English Wikipedia article on Thomas Pynchon is probably the most detailed biographical account available.

The bibliographical section of this site contains a checklist of more articles. A list of all Pynchon's endorsements is here.

Jonathan Glassow 'mapped' (as he calls it) Thomas Pynchon, listing known addresses. He also provided this site with several photographs of houses where Pynchon lived.