Biography & Autobiography : Literary

For many, Anne Bradstreet's name is familiar from the early pages of anthologies of American poetry or from John Berryman's famous tribute to her. But few know that she was the first published poet - male or female - to emerge from the wilderness of the New World, or that her slim volume of verse was a runaway bestseller. Now, in this biography, Charlotte Gordon reveals Anne Bradstreet to be an electrifying personality at the center of one of the most fascinating periods in our country's history." "Transplanted from England to the New World in 1630, eighteen-year-old Anne was among the first waves of settlers on the unwelcoming shores of what would one day be Massachusetts. Arriving just a decade after the Pilgrims, Anne quickly had to transform herself from educated gentlewoman to frontier wife and mother. Of course, she was not alone: with her came her new husband, Simon Bradstreet; her imperious father, Thomas Dudley; and a powerful clutch of Protestant dissenters whose descendants would become our founding fathers." "Anne not only recorded her own experience, but also commented on the political and religious upheavals of her day, casting light on the hypocrisy of Old England and the promise of the New." This is the story of a woman and poet of great feeling struggling to find a language to describe the country in which she finds herself. It also offers a complex portrait of early America, the Puritans, and the trials and values whose legacy continues to shape our country to the present day. more...

Price: $19.99

Modernism and Mildred Walker is the first full-length critical study of the major fictional works of this American author whose life spanned the twentieth century (1905–98) and whose literary production spanned almost three-quarters of a century. A highly regarded chronicler of New England and the American West, she is also appreciated for her portrayal of women characters and the complexity of women’s roles. Long beloved by readers of Montana fiction, Mildred Walker’s novels have been dismissed by some critics as only of regional interest, and, as Carmen Pearson argues, have not been explored and appreciated from other critical perspectives and by other audiences. more...

Price: $40.00

Published posthumously in 1964, A Moveable Feast remains one of Ernest Hemingway's most beloved works. It is his classic memoir of Paris in the 1920s, filled with irreverent portraits of other expatriate luminaries such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein; tender memories of his first wife, Hadley; and insightful recollections of his own early experiments with his craft. It is a literary feast, brilliantly evoking the exuberant mood of Paris after World War I and the youthful spirit, unbridled creativity, and unquenchable enthusiasm that Hemingway himself epitomized. more...

Price: $9.99

John Irving's memoir begins with his account of the distinguished career and medical writings of the novelist's grandfather Dr. Frederick C. Irving, a renowned obstetrician and gynecologist, and includes Mr. Irving's incisive history of abortion politics in the United States. more...

Price: $12.95

Winner of the Nobel Prize, Naipaul has traveled throughout the world, looking at its varied cultures and seeking out others' stories, recording and transforming them. His engagement with postcolonial cultures informs his novels, such as Guerrillas and A Bend in the River . However, it is his documentaries (such as Among the Believers and Beyond Belief ) and his works that combine actual and fictional histories and memories ( Finding the Center, The Enigma of Arrival , and A Way in the World ) that best exhibit a growing awareness of the complexities of cultural difference and the incompleteness and uncertainty of understanding 'strangers'. more...

Price: $18.35