The return of a bestselling classic with new material. Full-color vintage images for the first time. A new selection of recipes from Pennsylvania's Christmas past.

From the Pennsylvania Dutch Country in Southeastern and Central Pennsylvania has spread the fun holiday celebration of Groundhog Day. Now firmly ensconced as a national event every February 2, it radiates outward from Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania and gives us all a welcome holiday to celebrate between New Year’s Day and Easter. Through this holiday, the Groundhog has in a sense been personalized and humanized. Learn more about this unique holiday and grab your copy of Groundhog Day today!

• 40th Anniversary EditionFirst published in 1960 and written by a pioneer in American folklife studies, this classic work explores the folk practices surrounding the Easter holidays, from Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday and Whitsuntide. Interviews and newspaper reports, from the eighteenth century through the early twentieth century, record the evolution of holiday traditions, including fastnachts, the Easter Rabbit, decorated eggs, and Easter-egg trees. Don Yoder...

• Investigation into a child's gruesome murder• New findings on a justice system that failed a young woman• The real story behind the legendThe unfortunate Susanna Cox gained notoriety for killing her illegitimate infant son. The fatal episode led to her hanging in Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1809, the last public execution of a woman in the commonwealth. But was Susanna really the culprit? The legend of her fate, repeated in Pennsylvania German broadsides by the generat...

Bestselling classic with historical accounts, full-color vintage images, and a selection of recipes from Pennsylvania's Christmas pastOriginally published in 1959 and written by one of the seminal figures in American folklife studies, this classic work examines the folk origins of Christmas in the Keystone State. Composed of interviews and contemporary newspaper reports, it records holiday traditions from the eighteenth century through the early twentieth century, including mummers...

Knowledge of folk custom and folk belief can help to explain ways of thought and behavior in modern America. American Folklife, a unique collection of essays dedicated to the presentation of American tradition, broadens our understanding of the regional differences and ethnic folkways that color American life.Folklife research examines the entire context of everyday life in past and present. It includes every aspect of traditional life, from regional architecture through t...

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...

The original and insightful collection that combines Mark Twain's journal writings with his rarely seen sketches and doodles. Fascinating and often hilarious, this is a complete record of the thoughts, ideas, and observations of the father of American literature.A national treasure and a cultural and literary icon, Mark Twain was called "the father of American literature" by William Faulkner. His beloved works include The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,

Here are more than 1,800 quotations, organized from A-to-Z, from America's consummate author--Mark Twain. A must-have for all Twain collectors, The Quotable Mark Twain is filled with his opinions about the people he knew, the places he's been, and the books he wrote, as well as more far-ranging topics, such as writers, billiards, smoking, his family, and more. The book also includes 150 illustrations taken from the original editions of Twain's publications, source citations for ea...

'I obey my happy hour's command, which seems curiously imperative. May-be, if I don't do anything else, I shall send out the most wayward, spontaneous, fragmentary book ever printed.' One of the best kept secrets of modern autobiographical literature, Whitman's autobiography moves in brisk, episodic fashion to chronicle the life of one of the world's best loved and most influential poets. Experimental in form, lyrical in expression, and rich in experiential content, Sp...

Though best known for his caustic newspaper columns, H. L. Mencken's most enduring contribution to American literature may be his autobiographical writings, most of which first appeared in the New Yorker. In Happy Days, Mencken recalls memories of a safe and happy boyhood in the Baltimore of the 1880s and celebrates a way of life that he saw swiftly changing—from a time of straw hats and buggy rides to locomotives and bread lines.

For almost three centuries, the "Pennsylvania Dutch"--descended from German immigrants--have practiced white magic, known in their dialect as Braucherei (from the German "brauchen," to use) or Powwowing. The tradition was brought by immigrants from the Rhineland and Switzerland in the 17th and 18th centuries, when they settled in Pennsylvania and in other areas of what is now the eastern United States and Canada.Practitioners draw on folklore and tradition dating to the turn of the...