Charles Webb

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The Graduate

Webb's first and most famous novel was published in 1963, foreshadowing many of the social tensions of the 1960s which the book would come to represent. Through this novel, the character of "archetypal seductive older woman" Mrs. Robinson has found a permanent niche in American cultural history. The novel was made into the hugely successful film by Mike Nichols. Webb has stated that he never felt comfortable with the attention the film brought him because he felt it distracted from his status as a serious artist.

Webb sold the film rights for a payment reported to be $20,000. He was rarely associated with the film's publicity and not particularly with the growth of its reputation. Buck Henry and Calder Willingham, the screenwriters, assumed much of the credit for the work despite taking most of the dialogue directly from the book. During the film's enormous success, the producer, Joseph E. Levine, offered Webb token recognition by an additional compensation of $10,000.

In April 2006, it was reported that Webb had written a sequel to The Graduate, titled Home School but refused to publish it in its entirety because of a copyright loophole. When he sold the film rights to The Graduate in the 1960s, Webb also surrendered the film rights to any sequels. If he were to publish Home School, Canal+, the French media company that owns the rights to The Graduate, would be able to adapt it for the screen without his permission.

Extracts of Home School were printed in The Times on May 2, 2006. Webb also told the newspaper that there was a possibility he would find a publisher for the full text, provided he could retrieve the film rights using French intellectual property law.

At the same time as this news broke, Webb and his wife were also widely reported to be in such financial hardship that they were facing eviction from their home, owing rent of £1,600. Webb said to The Times that although his writing had proceeded, "the selling [of his books] hasn't" because he spends most of his time caring for Fred, who has been clinically depressed since suffering a nervous breakdown in 2001.

In May 2006, The Times reported that Webb had signed a publishing deal for Home School with Random House which would enable him to clear almost all his debts and instruct the French lawyers to attempt to retrieve his rights. On May 27, 2007, The Sunday Telegraph published a story that the novel was to be published in June 2007 and reported Webb having moved to Eastbourne. Home School was published by Hutchinson in June 2007. ISBN 978-0-09-179565-8 and by St. Martin's Press, January 2008, ISBN 978-0-312-37630-7.

Charles Webb

Charles Webb

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