Although technically too young to attend, five-year-old Tom followedhis sister Effie to school one day. The teacher allowed him to stay, and so Tom began his elementary education at Orange Street School. In 1912, Tom was part of a select group of students offered the opportunity to attend the North State Fitting School, a new private preparatory school. The school was run by John and Margaret Roberts, both of whom taught classes there. Margaret Roberts immediately noticed Tom's scholastic abilities and encouraged his studies, especially in the area of literature. Tom thrived under her attention and encouragement, and he later inscribed a copy of his novel Look Homeward, Angel to Margaret Roberts-"the mother of my spirit."

Wolfe completed his studies at the North State Fitting School and enrolled in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1916-at the age of fifteen. The young student soon became active in a number of campus organizations, including the Dialectic Literary Society and the campus newspaper. During the induction for new members of the "Di", Wolfe gave a solemn speech in which he predicted that his portrait would one day hang in the Old West Hall next to that of North Carolina governor Zebulon Vance. His prediction was accurate-his portrait does indeed now hang in the Di hall among the great leaders who attended the University. Wolfe was also one of the original members of the Carolina Playmakers, a course in playwriting taught by Frederick Koch. Tom played the starring role in his first play, The Return of Buck Gavin, which was also one of the first plays staged by the fledgling Playmakers. Wolfe eventually joined the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity and in 1919 was inducted into the Golden Fleece honor society. The biographical sketch by Wolfe's picture in his senior yearbook proclaimed: "He can do more between 8:25 and 8:30 than the rest of us do all day, and it is no wonder that he is classed as a genius."

Despite his family's desire for him to return home and take a job as a teacher, Wolfe longed to attend Harvard University. After convincing his mother to pay for his first year's tuition, Wolfe enrolled in 1920. For the next three years he attended the prestigious 47 Workshop, a playwriting class taught by George Pierce Baker (the same class that had earlier produced Eugene O'Neill). The 47 Workshop staged several of Wolfe's plays, including The Mountains and Welcome To Our City. Many of the themes Wolfe employed in these plays would later show up in his novels. Although he obtained his Master of Dramatic Arts degree in 1922, Tom stayed for a third year of study. After leaving Harvard he took a job teaching English composition at Washington Square College in New York City. Wolfe hated teaching and longed to be able to support himself through his writing. Unfortunately, New York's theater community was unwilling to produce any of his plays. Full of actors and scene changes, and often running as long as four hours, Wolfe's plays were well written but simply too unwieldy for the stage.

In 1924, Wolfe decided to take a trip to Europe. During his return trip home aboard the steamer Olympic, he met Aline Bernstein, a set and costume designer from New York. The two felt an immediate interest in one another and soon embarked on a five-year affair, even though she was twenty years his senior and married with a family. Bernstein was strongly supportive of Wolfe's dream of being a writer, and she funding more trips to Europe to allow him the time and seclusion he needed to write. It was Bernstein who convinced Wolfe to put aside the plays and try his hand at a novel. After being turned away by several publishing houses, the resulting massive manuscript (titled O Lost) found its way to the desk of Charles Scribner's Sons respected editor, Maxwell Perkins. Perkins immediately saw the value of the novel, although he also realized that it would require some trimming and extra attention from the author before it was ready for publication. Wolfe's final result, Look Homeward, Angel, was published in 1929. Wolfe dedicated it to "A. B."-Aline Bernstein. The book utilized many of the same themes that had appeared in Wolfe's plays and drew heavily on his childhood experiences.

Just before the publication date of his first novel, Wolfe felt a strong need to return home and warn his family. Although his note "To the Reader" (which prefaces the novel) claims that Wolfe "meditated no man's portrait here," the truth was that over two hundred characters were based on living people, mostly citizens of Asheville. This included the Wolfe family themselves. Their personal flaws, conflicts, and failures were presented clearly for the world to see. Wolfe knew instinctively that the book would arouse controversy, and he was right. Asheville was horrified, as was Wolfe's family, despite his early warning to them. Tom himself was so concerned over his hometown's reaction that he lived in self-imposed exile from Asheville for the next eight years.

Outside Asheville, Look Homeward, Angel met with both critical andcommercial success. Wolfe was anxious to get to work on his next manuscript, and spent several years dividing his time between Europe and New York while he wrote and re-wrote. In 1935, Scribner's published Wolfe's second novel, Of Time and the River, and a collection of short stories called From Death to Morning. Of Time and the River was even more commercially successful than its predecessor and Wolfe decided to begin his most ambitious project yet. He planned a series of novels, each presenting an aspect of America's history.

In 1937, Wolfe finally decided to return to his hometown. He made two trips, in May and July. Asheville surprised Wolfe with their warm reception. In fact, he was so constantly mobbed by well-wishers that he found it impossible to write. Wolfe managed to produce only one thing-a short article for the Asheville Citizen called "Return", which expressed his feelings about finally returning home. After spending some time with his mother, Wolfe returned to New York.

The next year, struggling with his manuscript and feeling the need for a vacation, Wolfe headed west. He spent the summer touring the West Coast and visiting the National Parks, but the vacation ended when Wolfe, suffering from a fever and headaches, checked into a Seattle sanatorium and then a hospital. Doctors began to suspect a brain abscess or tumor and finally sent him by train to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Exploratory surgery revealed tubercular meningitis-tuberculosis of the brain. The disease had advanced too far for treatment, and Wolfe died just a few days later on September 15, 1938. He was not quite thirty-eight years old. The funeral was held at the First Presbyterian in Asheville and Wolfe was interred in the family plot at Historic Riverside Cemetery.

Prior to his death, Wolfe had ended his association with Maxwell Perkins and Scribner's in favor of working with Harper and Brothers. His new editor, Edward Aswell, formed Wolfe's massive unfinished manuscript into three posthumous publications-the novels The Web and the Rock (1939) and You Can't Go Home Again (1940) and a collection of short stories entitled The Hills Beyond (1941).