American Renaissance

The award-winning Beneath the American Renaissance is a classic work on American literature. It immeasurably broadens our knowledge of our most important literary period, as first identified by F.O. Matthiessen’s American Renaissance. With its combination of sharp critical insight, engaging observation, and narrative drive, it represents the kind of masterful cultural history for which David Reynolds is known. Here the major works of Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, and others receive striking, original readings set against the rich backdrop of contemporary popular writing.

Betrayed by the ruling families of Italy, Ezio Auditore embarks upon an epic quest for vengeance. To eradicate corruption and restore his family's honor, he will learn the art of the Assassins. Along the way, Ezio will call upon the wisdom of such great minds as Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolò Machiavelli, knowing that survival is bound to the skills by which he must live.To his allies, he will become a force for change in his fight for freedom and justice.

This book compiles both the first (1855) and final (1892) versions of Walt Whitman's masterpiece Song of Myself in one volume, making it unique and valuable for students of American literature.

In The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke, Jeffrey C. Stewart offers the definitive biography of the father of the Harlem Renaissance, based on the extant primary sources of his life and on interviews with those who knew him personally. He narrates the education of Locke, including his becoming the first African American Rhodes Scholar, earning a PhD in philosophy at Harvard University, and his long career as a professor at Howard University. And yet he became most closely associated with the flowering of Black culture in Jazz Age America.

When Walt Whitman self-published "Leaves of Grass" in 1855, he rocked the literary world and forever changed the course of poetry. In subsequent editions, Whitman continued to revise and expand his poems - but none matched the raw power and immediacy of the first edition. This volume presents the 1855 "Leaves of Grass" in its entirety, unchanged, along with Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous letter to Whitman.

Beginning in the heady days just after the First Crusade, this volume - the third in the series that began with The History of the Ancient World and The History of the Medieval World - chronicles the contradictions of a world in transition. Impressively researched and brilliantly told, The History of the Renaissance World offers not just the names, dates, and facts but the memorable characters who illuminate the years between 1100 and 1453 - years that marked a sea change in mankind's perception of the world.

Dubbed the “joy goddess of Harlem’s 1920s” by poet Langston Hughes, A’Lelia Walker, daughter of millionaire entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker and the author’s great-grandmother and namesake, is a fascinating figure whose legendary parties and Dark Tower salon helped define the Harlem Renaissance. After inheriting her mother’s hair care enterprise, A’Lelia would become America’s first high profile black heiress and a prominent patron of the arts.

In 1919, a high school teacher from Washington, D.C arrives in Harlem excited to realize her lifelong dream. Jessie Redmon Fauset has been named the literary editor of The Crisis. The first Black woman to hold this position at a preeminent Negro magazine, Jessie is poised to achieve literary greatness. But she holds a secret that jeopardizes it all. W. E. B. Du Bois, the founder of The Crisis, is not only Jessie’s boss, he’s her lover. And neither his wife, nor their fourteen-year-age difference can keep the two apart.

The daughter of a powerful Atlanta dynasty, Ricki Wilde is the opposite of her famous socialite sisters. In her bones, Ricki knows that somewhere, a different, more exciting life awaits her. When she moves into a Harlem brownstone, she leaves behind her family, wealth, and chaotic romantic decisions to realize her dream of opening a flower shop. One evening Ricki encounters a handsome, deeply mysterious stranger who knocks her world off balance in the most unexpected way.

Breana "Baby Doll" Winbush grew up in the fast streets of Brownsville, Brooklyn. She is stunningly beautiful, a fighter by nature, and like most people in her neighborhood, her ultimate dream is to become rich. Her ambitious quest for money knows no boundaries. During an after-school fight with jealous high school foes, Baby Doll's life takes a turn when she meets Big Daddy Blue, a reformed gangster who turned his ill-gotten gains into legitimate business enterprises. Ironically it's Baby Doll's relationship with Big Daddy Blue that totally changes her perception and outlook on life in ...

Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick is an outstanding collection of stories about love and migration, gender and class, racism and sexism that proudly reflect African-American folk culture. Brought together for the first time in one volume, they include eight of Hurston’s "lost" Harlem stories, which were found in forgotten periodicals and archives. These stories challenge conceptions of Hurston as an author of rural fiction and include gems that flash with her biting, satiric humor, as well as more serious tales.

A carefully produced edition of Emerson's most famous essay. Beware of other publishers' slapdash editions.

At the time of its publication, Wallace Thurman’s debut novel was deeply provocative. This was due not only to its frank considerations of race and sex, but also to its vivid portrait of a Harlem that few other writers had dared to explore. At the heart of this journey into new terrain is Emma Lou Morgan, a Black woman who leaves her “color-struck” Idaho hometown behind and strikes out, first for Los Angeles and later for Harlem—where, unfortunately, discrimination simply takes on a new form.

Description for Black As We Know It: History of Black America Black As We Know It: History of Black America is a powerful, sweeping novel that takes readers on an unforgettable journey through the heart of Black history. From the pain of captivity to the triumphs of resilience, this book weaves together fictionalized personal stories inspired by real historical events to showcase the strength, creativity, and enduring spirit of Black America. Through twenty captivating chapters, you’ll experience: The raw emotion of families torn apart by slavery and reunited in hope. The bravery of ...

Zora Neale Hurston is best remembered today for her work as a novelist, but she was also an accomplished dramatist, short story writer, and folklorist. That range of interests and styles is on full display in this collection.

The narrator of this beautiful, often disquieting novel is a young Native American man living on the Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana. Sensitive and self-destructive, he searches for something that will bind him to the lands of his ancestors but is haunted by personal tragedy, the dissolution of his once proud heritage, and Montana's vast emptiness. Winter in the Blood is an evocative and unforgettable work of literature that will continue to move and inspire anyone who encounters it.

This is a new edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne's masterpiece The Scarlet Letter. The story of Hester Prynne - the first great female character in American literature - is brought to life by narrator Amanda Brewer.

The United States endured a bitter civil war and embarked on the complex process of Reconstruction, aiming to eliminate slavery and secure civil rights for African Americans in the South. Despite the ratification of constitutional amendments guaranteeing these rights, their full realization would not come for another century. Johnson, who assumed the presidency only after Lincoln's assassination, bears significant responsibility for this delay. His actions enabled the growth of Jim Crow laws and entrenched racial inequality throughout the South in Reconstruction's aftermath.

Leonardo da Vinci was a gifted painter, talented musician, and dedicated scientist and inventor, designing flying machines, submarines, and even helicopters. Yet he had a hard time finishing things, a problem anyone can relate to. Only 13 paintings are known to be his; as for the illustrated encyclopedia he intended to create, all that he left were thousands of disorganized notebook pages. Here is an accessible portrait of a fascinating man who lived at a fascinating time - Italy during the Renaissance.

If you've wanted to read Ralph Waldo Emerson but find his 19th-century prose too daunting, help is here.... In Everyday Emerson, best-selling author Sam Torode (The Dirty Parts of the Bible: A Novel) rephrases the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson in contemporary language. The goal is to make Emerson's wisdom applicable to our daily lives, proving that transcendentalism isn't a relic of the past - it's a way of thinking and seeing the world that's still valid and vital.