One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston. Out of print for almost thirty years—due largely to initial audiences’ rejection of its strong black female protagonist—Hurston’s classic has since its 1978 reissue become perhaps the most widely read and highly acclaimed novel in the...

A republication of the first edition of American poet Walt Whitman's poetry collection, containing twelve poems and originally published in 1855.

In the nearly ninety years since Joy of Cooking was first published in 1931, it has become the kitchen bible. This new edition contains tried-and-true favorites, while introducing new dishes, modern cooking techniques, and comprehensive information on ingredients now available at farmers' markets and grocery stores. -- adapted from jacket "From the newest generation of the JOY family, for a new generation of cooks, comes a brand-new edition of America's...

In this book, Angelou details what brought her mother to send her away, and unearths the well of emotions she experienced long afterward as a result. For the first time, she reveals the triumphs and struggles of being the daughter of Vivian Baxter, an indomitable spirit whose petite size belied her larger-than-life presence, a presence absent during much of the author's early life. When her marriage began to crumble, Vivian famously sent three-year-old...

In her celebrated fiction, Shirley Jackson explored the darkness lurking beneath the surface of small-town America. But in Life Among the Savages, she takes on the lighter side of small-town life. In this witty and warm memoir of her family's life in rural Vermont, she delightfully exposes a domestic side in cheerful contrast to her quietly terrifying fiction. With a novelist's gift for character, an unfailing maternal instinct, and her signature...

"Nearly ninety years after its first publication, this celebratory edition of The Weary Blues reminds us of the stunning achievement of Langston Hughes, who was just twenty-four at its first appearance. Beginning with the opening "Proem" (prologue poem)--"I am a Negro: / Black as the night is black, / Black like the depths of my Africa"--Hughes spoke directly, intimately, and powerfully of the experiences of African Americans at a time when their...

In 1930 the Committee on Traditions and Ideals of the Vermont Commission on Country Life chose to devote a season's survey to Vermont's folk-songs.

In these twenty-five newly conceived essays Kingsolver returns to her favorite literary terrain to explore the themes of family, community, and the natural world.

Dedicated to the daughter she never had but sees all around her, Letter to My Daughter reveals Maya Angelou's path to living well and living a life with meaning. Whether she is recalling such lost friends as Coretta Scott King and Ossie Davis, extolling honesty, decrying vulgarity, explaining why becoming a Christian is a "lifelong endeavor," or simply singing the praises of a meal of red rice -- Maya Angelou writes from the heart to millions of...

Appearing in 1855, My Bondage and My Freedom is the second autoobiography written by Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), a man who was born into slavery in Maryland and who went on to become the most famous antislavery autHor, orator, philosopher, essayist, historian, intellectual, statesman and freedom-fighter in US history. An instant bestseller, Douglass's autobiography tells the story of his early life as lived in 'bondage' and of his later life as...