The unvarnished behind-the-scenes tale of the OSS—and the incredibly daring men and women who put their lives at stake in the most dangerous game of all."By mid-1942, after a Washington shuffle, the Office of Coordinator of information had become the Office of Strategic Services. By then, Colonel, later General, "Wild Bill" Donovan, the "Wizard of OSS", was "sitting stop a lusty, burgeoning, dynamic organization stamped with its own imprint". The story of how that organization grew,...

"A collection of essays on poetry and the experiences that influenced poet Robert Hayden. Contents include "The History of Punchinello: A Baroque Play in One Act," Hayden's introductory remarks to volumes like Kaleidoscope: Poems by American Negro Poet and The New Negro, and interviews with Hayden."

An exquisite body of work celebrating the centennial of one of the most important African-American poets of the twentieth century.Robert Hayden was one of the most important American poets of the twentieth century. He left behind an exquisite body of work, collected in this definitive edition, including A Ballad of Remembrance, Words in the Mourning Time, The Night-Blooming Cereus, Angle of Ascent, and American Journal, which was nominat...

Thoroughly revised and expanded for a new generation of readers, this classic guide to enjoying literature to its fullest—a lively, enlightening, and entertaining introduction to a diverse range of writing and literary devices that enrich these works, including symbols, themes, and contexts—teaches you how to make your everyday reading experience richer and more rewarding.While books can be enjoyed for their basic stories, there are often deeper literary meanings beneath the surfac...

Seven years ago, Christian Wiman, a well-known poet and the editor of Poetry magazine, wrote a now-famous essay about having faith in the face of death. My Bright Abyss, composed in the difficult years since and completed in the wake of a bone marrow transplant, is a moving meditation on what a viable contemporary faith—responsive not only to modern thought and science but also to religious tradition—might look like.Joyful, sorrowful, and beautifully written, ...

"No one else has ever made avant-garde, experimental poems so attractive to both the general and the special reader."—Randall JarrellThe one hundred and fifty-six poems here, arranged in twelve sections and introduced by E. E. Cummings's biographer, Richard S. Kennedy, include his most popular poems, spanning his earliest creations, his vivacious linguistic acrobatics, up to his last valedictory sonnets. Also featured are thirteen drawings, oils, and watercolors by...

Here in this portable treasury are the 100 most moving and memorable love poems of all time, each accompanied by an illuminating introduction.Words of Love...and seduction, heartbreak, adoration, and passion. Revisit the Classics:"He Is More Than a Hero" by Sappho Sonnet 18 ("Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds") by William Shakespeare "She Walks in Beauty" by Lord Byron Enjoy Old Favorites: "To My Dear and Loving Husband" by Anne Bradstreet "The Owl a...

A beautiful new edition—the first in nearly twenty years—of the work of Wallace Stevens, a founding father of contemporary American poetry, with a dazzling range of work that is at once emotional and intellectual. As John N. Serio reminds us in his elegant introduction, Stevens has written more persuasively than any other poet about the significance of poetry itself in everyday life: “The imagination—frequently synonymous with the act of the mind, or poetry, for Stevens—is what gives life ...

A diverse collection of monologues featuring the voices of women through the agesDrawn from poetry, fiction, diaries, journals, and documents of public record, these selections, although not originally intended for theatrical or cinematic performances, offer unique dramatic opportunities for actors, speakers, students, or anyone interested in women’s studies.Stefan Rudnicki has brought together selections from well-known as well as obscure authors, providing...

America’s most provocative intellectual brings her blazing powers of analysis to the most famous poems of the Western tradition—and unearths some previously obscure verses worthy of a place in our canon. Combining close reading with a panoramic breadth of learning, Camille Paglia sharpens our understanding of poems we thought we knew, from Shakespeare to Dickinson to Plath, and makes a case for including in the canon works by Paul Blackburn, Wanda Coleman, Chuck Wachtel, Rochelle Kraut—and...

From the author of the New York Times bestselling How to Read Literature Like a Professor comes a highly entertaining and informative book on the twenty-five works of literature that have most shaped the American character.Thomas C. Foster applies his much-loved combination of wit, know-how, and analysis to explain how each work has shaped our very existence as readers, students, teachers, and Americans. He illuminates how books such as The La...

A landmark of American literature told in dramatic monologues that topples the myth of the moral superiority of small-town lifeIn 1915, Edgar Lee Masters published a book written in free verse about a fictional town called Spoon River, based on the Midwestern towns where he grew up. The shocking scandals and secret tragedies of Spoon River were immediately recognized by readers as authentic. Masters raises the dead “sleeping on the hill” in their village cemetery t...