This lavishly illustrated book brings together for the first time a significant body of imagery devoted to the traditional culture of the African-American slave.

Death is a much avoided topic. Literature on mourning exists, but it focuses chiefly upon the death of others. The inevitable psychic impact of one's own mortality is not optimally covered either in this literature on mourning or elsewhere in psychiatry and psychoanalysis. The Wound of Mortality brings together contributions from distinguished psychoanalysts to fill this gap by addressing the issue of death in a comprehensive manner. Among questions the contributors raise and seek...

Mark Twain's final and uncensored masterpiece, presented in three volumes, is a landmark publication in American literature.**“Twain will begin to seem strange again, alluring and still astonishing . . . in ways that still resonate with us.”—New York Times“His crystalline humor and expansive range are a continuous source of delight and awe.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review**"I've struck it!" Mark Twain wrote in a 1904 letter to a fri...

*A Guardian Best Biography of the Year*The complex and fascinating life of Mark Twain, as told by a Pulitzer prizewinning biographerBorn in 1835, the man who would become America’s first, and most influential, literary celebrity spent his childhood dreaming of piloting steamboats on the Mississippi. But when the Civil War interrupted his career on the river, the young Mark Twain went west and accepted a job at the local newspaper, writing dispatches...

“Powers brings to vivid life Twain's America...No biography of Mark Twain could do him full justice. Powers' comes as close as you can imagine." —Los Angeles TimesA magnificent and insightful biography of legendary writer Mark Twain and a great American story.Samuel Clemens, the man known as Mark Twain, invented the American voice and became one of our greatest celebrities. His life mirrored his country's, as he grew from a Mississ...

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • Drawing on a wealth of research, this "fascinating" book (The New York Times Book Review) charts the invention of our current Yuletide traditions, from St. Nicholas to the Christmas tree and, perhaps most radically, the practice of giving gifts to children.Anyone who laments the excesses of Christmas might consider the Puritans of colonial Massachusetts: they simply outlawed the holiday. The Puritans had their reasons, since Chris...

A portrait of the vibrant world of 1920s Harlem, with writings by Langston Hughes, W. E. B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, Walter White, and more.The Harlem Renaissance was a landmark period in African American history—a time when black poets, musicians, intellectuals, civil rights activists, and others changed the social and cultural landscape in enduring ways. Its influence went far beyond the confines of uptown New York City, as it incorporated voices...

Louisa May Alcott never intended to write Little Women. She had dismissed her publisher’s pleas for such a novel. Written out of necessity to support her family, the book had an astounding success that changed her life, a life which turned out very differently from that of her beloved heroine Jo March.In Louisa May Alcott, Susan Cheever, the acclaimed author of American Bloomsbury, returns to Concord, Mas...

This acclaimed biography captures the inspiring life and philosophy of an influential American thinker: "a moving portrait of a brilliant, complex man" ( The New York Times).Henry David Thoreau's attempt to "live deliberately" in the woods outside his hometown of Concord, Massachusetts, has inspired individualists since the publication of Walden in 1854. But there was much more to Thoreau than his brief experiment in living at Walden Pond. A member...

"The true story behind Uncle Tom's Cabin . . . the real story of his escape is more moving, and more harrowing, than anything one could put in fiction." — Yesterday's AmericaJosiah Henson was born into slavery in La Plata, Maryland, and auctioned off as a child to pay his owner's debt. After numerous trials and abuse, he earned the trust of his slaveholder by exhibiting intelligence and skill.Daringly, he escaped to Canada with his wife and ...

NAACP Image Award Winner for Outstanding Literary Work for Poetry2020 National Book Award for Poetry, Longlist2020 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry, FinalistIn 1773, a young, African American woman named Phillis Wheatley Peters published a book of poetry that challenged Western prejudices about African and female intellectual capabilities. Based on fifteen years of archival research...

Even the most devoted readers of nineteenth-century American literature often assume that the men and women behind the masterpieces were as dull and staid as the era's static daguerreotypes. Susan Cheever's latest work, however, brings new life to the well-known literary personages who produced such cherished works as The Scarlet Letter, Moby-Dick, Walden, and Little Women. Rendering in full color the tumultuous, often scandalous lives of these volatile a...