"One Matchless time is an evocation of William Faulkner's life and work. From his birth in 1897 in Mississippi to his death sixty-five years later, Faulkner spent almost his entire life on this one small patch of land, the "significant soil" from which all his fiction grew. Jay Parini paints an intimate picture of Faulkner's Mississippi world and shows how the artist transformed this raw material into Yoknapatawpha County, a place of pure imagination."...

"A historical novel of the Apostle Paul, whose tireless and epic preaching of the message of Jesus brought Christianity into existence and changed human history. In relating Paul's epic journeys, both geographical and spiritual, the author unfolds a vivid panorama of the ancient world on the verge of epochal change, while in the alternating voice of the Gospel writer Luke, Paul's travel companion, scribe, and ghostwriter, a cooler perspective on Paul's...

From the Publisher: Gore Vidal-novelist, playwright, critic, screenwriter, memoirist, indefatigable political commentator, and controversialists-is America's premier man of letters. No other living writer brings more sparkling wit, vast learning, indelible personality, and provocative mirth to the job of writing an essay. This long-needed volume comprises some twenty-four of his best-loved pieces of criticism, political commentary, memoir, portraiture,...

Contains biographical and critical essays on the work of important American writers. Presents scholar-signed essays prepared by experts in the field.

"Biographical and critical essays on 18 British writers"--

Presents a general history and criticism of American poetry from Puritan times to the present.

Readings of excerpts from and critical analysis of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, a novel about a poor family of sharecroppers who are driven from their home by drought, economic hardship, and changes in the agriculture industry during the Great Depression. Includes interviews, commentaries and excerpts from the novel, providing first-hand accounts of why The Grapes of Wrath remains so compelling seven decades after its initial publication....