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Showing 1 - 18 of 18 items
By William Wells Brown. 2004
The first novel by an African-American, this dramatic tale revolves around the fate of a child fathered by Thomas Jefferson…
with one of his slaves. Although born into slavery, author William Wells Brown escaped bondage to become a prominent reformer and historian. His emotionally powerful depiction of slavery and racial conflict in the antebellum South resounds with the immediacy and honesty of his own experiences. Brown weaves a variety of contemporary sources -- sermons, lectures, political pamphlets, and newspaper advertisements -- into this innovative work, which appears here in an unabridged republication of the 1853 first edition.By A. B. Facey. 1981
Bert Facey saw himself as an ordinary man, but his remarkable story reveals an extraordinary life lived to the full.…
Bert Facey was a battler, ever optimistic and hopeful despite the hardships of his life. A true classic of Australian literature, his simply written autobiography is an inspiration. This edition has been specially adapted for young readers.By Michael Gnarowski, Patrick Slater. 2008
Folktale, memoir, fiction, literary hoax, The Yellow Briar is all of these. Ostensibly the charming remembrance of an Irish orphan…
who escapes the Great Famine of 1840s Ireland and comes to the New World to seek a fresh start on the streets of Toronto and in the pioneer hinterland of Canada West (Ontario), the book was actually a fictional humbug perpetrated by John Mitchell, a Toronto lawyer, who first published the tale in 1933. Patrick Slater, the protagonist of the "memoir," is said to have died in 1924 but not before setting his saga down on paper. And what an account it is! The Globe and Mail felt that the book "gives a picture of Ontario to be found in no other work of fiction we know and has won for itself a permanent place in Canadian literature." If nothing else, Slater/Mitchell captures perfectly the lilt of the Irish and the wry wisdom of an old soul to paint an affecting portrait of trials and tribulations in a long-ago time.By Stephen Crane. 1997
In his brief but productive lifetime, Stephen Crane (1871-1900) wrote vividly and sensitively about a variety of subjects. In his…
work he displayed a rare ability to combine astute characterization, colorful settings, and an ironic tone in memorable tales offering perceptive explorations of human psychology and motivation.He is perhaps famous as author of The Red Badge of Courage, the quintessential Civil War classic. However, Crane wrote seven other stories involving this monumental conflict. All are gathered together in this volume. They include "A Mystery of Heroism," "A Gray Sleeve," "Three Miraculous Soldiers," "The Little Regiment," "An Indiana Campaign," "An Episode of War," and "The Veteran," which features Henry Fleming, protagonist of The Red Badge of Courage, years after the war.Attractive and sturdily bound, this modestly priced edition will find an enthusiastic audience among admirers of Crane's work, students of American literature, and Civil War buffs alike. All will enjoy the work of an author now recognized as one of the most innovative, influential writers of his generation -- an acknowledged master of the short story.By Ambrose Bierce. 1994
Newspaperman, short-story writer, poet, and satirist, Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) is one of the most striking and unusual literary figures America…
has produced. Dubbed "Bitter Bierce" for his vitriolic wit and biting satire, his fame rests largely on a celebrated compilation of barbed epigrams, The Devil's Dictionary, and a book of short stories (Tales of Soldiers and Civilians, 1891). Most of the 16 selections in this volume have been taken from the latter collection.The stories in this edition include: "What I Saw at Shiloh," "A Son of the Gods," "Four Days in Dixie," "One of the Missing," "A Horseman in the Sky," "The Coup de Grace," "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," "The Story of Conscience," "One Kind of Officer," "Chickamauga," and five more.Bierce's stories employ a buildup of suggestive realistic detail to produce grim and vivid tales often disturbing in their mood of fatalism and impending calamity. Hauntingly suggestive, they offer excellent examples of the author's dark pessimism and storytelling power.By Dolley Carlson. 2018
Think Downton Abbey, set in the heart of Boston Irish domestic worker Norah King's decision to ask her wealthy employer,…
Caroline Parker, for an elegant red coat that the Beacon Hill matriarch has marked for donation ignites a series of events that neither woman could have fathomed. The unlikely exchange will impact their respective daughters and families for generations to come, from the coat's original owner, marriage-minded collegian Cordelia Parker, to the determined and spirited King sisters of South Boston, Rosemary, Kay, and Rita. As all of these young women experience the realities of life – love and loss, conflict and joy, class prejudices and unexpected prospects – the red coat reveals the distinction between cultures, generations, and landscapes in Boston during the 1940s and 50s, a time of change, challenge, and opportunity. Meet the proud, working-class Irish and staid, upper-class Brahmins through the contrasting lives of these two families and their friends and neighbors. See how the Parkers and the Kings each overcome sudden tragedy with resolve and triumph. And witness the profound impact of a mother’s heart on her children’s souls. Carlson brings us front and center with her knowing weave of Celtic passion – both tragic and joyful – words of wisdom, romance, humor, and historical events. Dive into Boston feet first! The Red Coat is a rich novel that chronicles the legacy of Boston from both sides of the city, Southie and the Hill.By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. 2019
For the first time in Penguin Classics, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's bestselling Civil War classicElizabeth Stuart Phelps's 1868 Reconstruction-era novel The…
Gates Ajar, in its portrait of inconsolable grief following the American Civil War, helped to shape enduring American ideas about heaven and demonstrated that for American women, the war didn't simply end at Appomattox. When Mary Cabot loses her beloved brother, Union soldier Royal, in the war, she feels as though she will never feel peace again until the arrival of her widowed aunt Winifred. Sharing the wisdom that has comforted her through her grief, Winifred offers Mary a groundbreaking view of the afterlife: a place of loving reunion with all those who were lost. As Winifred ministers to Mary, her vision of the afterlife circulates in the community and attracts local adherents who have similarly suffered losses in the war. Written with the intention of illuminating and bettering the lives of women after the war, The Gates Ajar is an empowering manifesto on conquering grief and a timeless manual for optimism.By Pamela Clare. 2012
Pamela Clare brings her expert plotting, sizzling chemistry and thrilling adventure to her sweeping MacKinnon's Rangers series, in the grand…
tradition of The Last of the Mohicans, perfect for fans of Maya Banks, Monica McCarty and Zoe Archer.They were a band of brothers, their loyalty to one another forged by hardship and battle, the bond between these Highland warriors, rugged colonials, and fierce Native Americans stronger even than blood ties.Major Connor MacKinnon despises his commander, Lord William Wentworth, beyond all other men. Ordered to rescue Wentworth's niece after the Shawnee take her captive, he expects Lady Sarah Woodville to be every bit as contemptible as her uncle. Instead, he finds a brave and beautiful lass in desperate peril. But the only way to free Sarah is for Connor to defeat the Shawnee warrior who kidnapped her - and claim her himself.Torn by tragedy from her sheltered life in London, Lady Sarah is unprepared for the harshness of the frontier - or for the attraction she feels toward Connor. When they reach civilization, however, it is she who must protect him. For if her uncle knew all that Connor had done to save her, he would surely kill him. But the flames of passion, once kindled, are difficult to deny. As desire transforms into love, Connor will have to defy an empire to keep Sarah at his side.Be swept away by the other sexy MacKinnon's Rangers in Surrender and Untamed. Or take a wildly romantic ride with Pamela Clare's I-Team: Extreme Exposure, Hard Evidence, Unlawful Contact, Naked Edge, Breaking Point, Striking Distance, Seduction Game.By Jean Alicia Elster. 2021
How It Happens follows the story of author Jean Alicia Elster’s maternal grandmother, Dorothy May Jackson. Born in Tennessee in…
1890, Dorothy May was the middle daughter of Addie Jackson, a married African-American housekeeper at one of the white boardinghouses in town, and Tom Mitchell, a commanding white attorney from a prominent family. Through three successive generations of African-American women, Elster intertwines the fictionalized adaptations of the defining periods and challenges—race relations, miscegenation, sexual assault, and class divisions—in her family’s history. A continuation of the plots begun in Elster’s two novels Who’s Jim Hines? and The Colored Car, How It Happens continues the story for an older audience and begins with Addie’s life before the turn of the century in the South as a married Black woman with three biracial daughters navigating the relationship between her husband and Tom Mitchell. Later the story shifts to Addie’s daughter Dorothy May’s experiences both as a child and later, as a teacher who, choosing between her career and marriage to a man she barely knows, moves to Detroit. The story moves along with Dorothy May’s daughter Jean, who, with the support of her mother and the memory of her grandmother, confronts and comes to terms with her role in society and the options available to her as a college-educated Black woman in the post–World War II industrial North. While there is struggle and hardship for each of these women, they each build off one other and continue to demand space in the world in which they live. Written for young adult readers, How It Happens carries the heart through the obstacles that still face women of color today and persists in holding open the door of communication between generations.By Harriet Beecher Stowe.
One of the most popular, influential, and controversial books written by an American, Uncle Tom's Cabin is a rich, panoramic…
novel passionately dramatizing why the whole of America is implicated in and responsible for slavery. It is the story of the slave Tom, who is devout and loyal and is sold and sent down South, where he endures brutal treatment at the hands of plantation owner Simon Legree. It is the exploration of society’s failures and the asking of a profound question: What is it to be a moral human being? And, moreover, it is the novel that helped move a nation to battle these injustices.By Fred Lewis Pattee, Julia Spicher Kasdorf, Joshua R. Brown. 2012
Fred Lewis Pattee, long regarded as the father of American literary study, also wrote fiction. Originally published in 1905 by…
Henry Holt, The House of the Black Ring was Pattee’s second novel—a local-color romance set in the mountains of Central Pennsylvania. The book’s plot is driven by family feud, forbidden love, and a touch of the supernatural. This new edition makes this novel accessible to new generations of modern-day readers. General readers will find in The House of the Black Ring a thriller that preserves details of rural life and language during the late nineteenth century. Scholars will read it as an expression of cultural anxiety and change in the decades after the Civil War. An introduction by poet and essayist Julia Spicher Kasdorf situates the novel within the context of social and literary history, as well as Pattee’s own biography, and provides a compelling argument for its importance, not only as a literary artifact or record of local customs, but also as a reflection of Pattee’s own story intertwined with the history of Penn State at the turn of the twentieth century. Joshua Brown draws on his expertise in Pennsylvania German ethno-linguistics to interpret the dialect writing and to give readers a clearer view of the customs and regionalisms depicted in the book.By Karen X. Tulchinsky. 2010
Crammed with humour, sorrow, folly, bravery and the richness of the everyday, Tulchinsky's fictional treatment of the Lapinsky family and…
its remarkable fortunes-through the pivotal moment of the 1933 Toronto race riot, the Great Depression, the rise of fascism and its attendant social tensions, World War II, and the post-war era-brings to life the character of an entire community.By Kathleen Duey. 1999
Bayou Grand Coeur, Louisiana, 1863. I wonder if the Confederates think of this war as their own? Or the Yankees?…
Who would want a war to be their own? Amelina is frightened. She is used to being alone while her Nonc Alain is away trading, but now Yankee soldiers are so close that she can sometimes hear the rumble of gunfire. Just because her close-knit Cajun community has for the most part been uninvolved in the war doesn't mean Nonc Alain's farm would be spared if the Yankees swept through the area. When Amelina makes a startling discovery that challenges everything she's been told about the Yankees, she is forced to make her own decision about what is right and what is wrong. Can she find the courage to face the danger that her decision brings?By Ganeshram Ramin. 2018
Philadelphia 1793. Hercules, President George Washington’s chef, is a fixture on the Philadelphia scene. He is famous for both his…
culinary prowess and for ruling his kitchen like a commanding general. He has his run of the city and earns twice the salary of an average American workingman. He wears beautiful clothes and attends the theater. But while valued by the Washingtons for his prowess in the kitchen and rewarded far over and above even white servants, Hercules is enslaved in a city where most black Americans are free. Even while he masterfully manages his kitchen and the lives of those in and around it, Hercules harbors secrets-- including the fact that he is learning to read and that he is involved in a dangerous affair with Thelma, a mixed-race woman, who, passing as white, works as a companion to the daughter of one of Philadelphia's most prestigious families. Eventually Hercules’ carefully crafted intrigues fall apart and he finds himself trapped by his circumstance and the will of George Washington. Based on actual historical events and people, The General's Cook, will thrill fans of The Hamilton Affair, as they follow Hercules' precarious and terrifying bid for freedom.By Fred Lewis Pattee. 2012
Fred Lewis Pattee, long regarded as the father of American literary study, also wrote fiction. Originally published in 1905 by…
Henry Holt, The House of the Black Ring was Pattee’s second novel—a local-color romance set in the mountains of Central Pennsylvania. The book’s plot is driven by family feud, forbidden love, and a touch of the supernatural. This new edition makes this novel accessible to new generations of modern-day readers. General readers will find in The House of the Black Ring a thriller that preserves details of rural life and language during the late nineteenth century. Scholars will read it as an expression of cultural anxiety and change in the decades after the Civil War. An introduction by poet and essayist Julia Spicher Kasdorf situates the novel within the context of social and literary history, as well as Pattee’s own biography, and provides a compelling argument for its importance, not only as a literary artifact or record of local customs, but also as a reflection of Pattee’s own story intertwined with the history of Penn State at the turn of the twentieth century. Joshua Brown draws on his expertise in Pennsylvania German ethno-linguistics to interpret the dialect writing and to give readers a clearer view of the customs and regionalisms depicted in the book.By Pamela Clare. 2008
Pamela Clare brings her expert plotting, sizzling chemistry and thrilling adventure to her breathtaking MacKinnon's Rangers series, in the grand…
tradition of The Last of the Mohicans, perfect for fans of Maya Banks, Monica McCarty and Zoe Archer.They were a band of brothers, their loyalty to one another forged by hardship and battle, the bond between these Highland warriors, rugged colonials, and fierce Native Americans stronger even than blood ties.Though forced to fight for the hated British, Morgan MacKinnon would no more betray the men he leads than slit his own throat - not even when he was captured by the French and threatened with an agonizing death by fire at the hands of their Abenaki allies. Only the look of innocent longing in the eyes of a convent-bred French lass could make him question his vow to escape and return to the Rangers. And soon the sweet passion he awoke in Amalie had him cursing the war that forced him to choose between upholding his honor and pledging himself to the woman he loves.Be swept away by the other sexy MacKinnon's Rangers in Surrender and Defiant. Or take a wildly romantic ride with Pamela Clare's I-Team: Extreme Exposure, Hard Evidence, Unlawful Contact, Naked Edge, Breaking Point, Striking Distance, Seduction Game.By Pamela Clare. 2006
Pamela Clare brings her expert plotting, sizzling chemistry and thrilling adventure to her sweeping MacKinnon's Rangers series, in the grand…
tradition of The Last of the Mohicans, perfect for fans of Maya Banks, Monica McCarty and Zoe Archer.They were a band of brothers, their loyalty to one another forged by hardship and battle, the bond between these Highland warriors, rugged colonials, and fierce Native Americans stronger even than blood ties.Iain MacKinnon had been forced to serve the British crown, but compassion urged him to save the lovely lass facing certain death at the hands of the Abenaki. He'd defied his orders, endangered his brothers, his men and his mission, all for a woman. But when he held Annie's sweet body in his arms, he could feel no regret. Though he sensed she was hiding something from him, it was too late to hold back his heart. In love and war, there are times when the only course of action is... Surrender.Be swept away by the other sexy MacKinnon's Rangers in Untamed and Defiant. Or take a wildly romantic ride with Pamela Clare's I-Team: Extreme Exposure, Hard Evidence, Unlawful Contact, Naked Edge, Breaking Point, Striking Distance, Seduction Game.By Jude Watson. 2009
Bestselling author Jude Watson takes Amy and Dan on a thrill-packed ride for the 4th installment of The 39 Clues…
series.Betrayed by their cousins, abandoned by their uncle, and with only the slimmest hint to guide them, fourteen-year old Amy Cahill and her younger brother, Dan, rush off to Egypt on the hunt for 39 Clues that lead to a source of unimaginable power. But when they arrive, Amy and Dan get something completely unexpected - a message from their dead grandmother, Grace. Did Grace set out to help the two orphans . . . ore are Amy and Dan heading for the most devastating betrayal of them all?