This critical study of Sherwood Anderson’s most famous and perhaps most widely taught work, Winesburg, Ohio, treats it as a thoroughly modernist novel examining the aesthetic nature of romantic identity. This first sustained critical analysis of this American classic restores Anderson to the top rank of American artists, placing him alongside other intense scrutinizers of American romanticism: Hawthorne, Melville, and Hemingway.

Ruth Pitter (1897–1992) may not be widely known, but her credentials as a poet are extensive; in England from the mid-1930s to the mid-1970s she maintained a loyal readership. In total she produced 17 volumes of new and collected verse. Her A Trophy of Arms (1936) won the Hawthornden Prize for Poetry in 1937, and in 1954 she was awarded the William E. Heinemann Award for The Ermine (1953). Most notably, perhaps, she became the first woman to receive the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 1955; this unprecedented event merited a personal audience with the queen.

Sundays in the Pound traces quarterback Bernie Kosar’s winding path from Youngstown to Florida to Cleveland, explains why there was so much more to running back Earnest Byner than one unforgotten fumble, and reveals how cornerback Hanford Dixon created a canine phenomenon in the endzone stands that has persevered to this day. Author Jonathan Knight delves into “the Drive” and “the Fumble”; examines the fairy-tale performance of an aging veteran quarterback who directed the Browns through the snow and into the playoffs in his final game at the old, cavernous Cleveland Stadium on Lake Erie’s shoreline; and recounts an epic playoffs saga in which the Browns staged one of the greatest comebacks in the history of Cleveland sports.

Drawing upon his experiences and knowledge as a professional anthropologist, Kent Maynard takes readers on a sensory journey through the cultures and landscapes of a fascinating and foreign world.

This anthology of thirteen true crime stories includes the mysterious slaying of Charles Walton, who was found slashed and pierced to death in an area notorious for its associations with black magic; the murder of Eric Tombe, whose body was located because of a recurring dream in which his mother saw Eric down a well; the terrorizing of Hammersmith, London, in the early nineteenth century by the nocturnal appearance of a “ghost”; the Salem witchcraft trials; the murder of Rasputin, who was believed by some in Russia to be a miracle worker and by others to be a dangerous charlatan; a Scottish tale in which evidence given by the ghost of the victim was allowed at the murderer’s trial; and the bizarre goings-on at 112 Ocean Avenue, Amityville, New York, where Ronnie DeFeo Jr. murdered his entire family—the new occupants were subjected to all manner of sinister events, including the presence of poltergeists, or were they?

Articulating the search for a cohesive American identity, Matthew Cooperman’s poetry attends to the slippery question of place: its history in personal and cultural memory and its tenuous constitution as family, nature, love, and community. Cooperman uses the metaphor of travel to invoke the necessary motion and distance required to look back at one’s past.

In A Surgeon’s Civil War, the educated and articulate Holt describes camp life, army politics, and the medical difficulties that he and his colleagues experienced. His reminiscences and letters provide an insider’s look at medicine as practiced on the battlefield and offer occasional glimpses of the efficacy of Surgeon General William A. Hammond’s reforms as they affected Holt’s regiment. He also comments on other subjects, including slavery and national events. Holt served until October 17, 1864 when ill health forced him to resign.

Jacob Jennings Brown may well be the most successful—yet forgotten—general of his time. Born into a Pennsylvania Quaker family on the eve of the American Revolution, Brown worked as a Quaker schoolteacher and surveyor and was a pioneer settler of northern New York before serving in the U.S. Army during the War of 1812, eventually rising to the highest command. Early in the war he commanded the militia defending 200 miles of the New York—Canadian border. His successful defense of the Lake Ontario naval base at Sackets Harbor in 1813 was rewarded with a regular army commission as brigadier general. He won more battles against British regular troops than any general in American history, and he was respected by his superiors, his subordinates, and the enemy.

In one of her escapades as a reporter for Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, the renowned Nellie Bly feigned insanity in 1889 and slipped, undercover, behind the grim walls of Blackwell’s Island mental asylum. She emerged ten days later with a vivid tale about life in a madhouse. Her asylum articles merged sympathy and sensationalism, highlighting a developing professional identity—that of the American newspaperwoman.

Tabernacles in the Wilderness discusses the work of the United States Christian Commission (USCC), a civilian relief agency established by northern evangelical Protestants to minister to Union troops during the American Civil War. USCC workers saw in the Civil War not only a wrathful judgment from God for the sins of the nation but an unparalleled opportunity to save the souls of US citizens and perfect the nation. Thus, the workers set about proselytizing and distributing material aid to Union soldiers with undaunted and righteous zeal.