'A landmark of the American literary century' Boston Globe Sixty years after the publication of his great modernist masterpiece, Call It Sleep, Henry Roth returned with Mercy of a Rude Stream - a sequence of four internationally-acclaimed epic novels of immigrant life in early-twentieth century New York. Written in the last year of Roth's life, this is the impassioned story of a young man's love affair with literature, and with his teacher. As Ira Stigman turns from his incestuous childhood affairs, he finds himself competing with his best friend for the attention of their literature professor. FROM BONDAGE is the the moving culmination of a great writer's life. 'The literary comeback of the century' Vanity Fair 'As unquenchably vibrant with life as the immigrants whose existence it commemorates' Sunday Times 'A dynamic and moving event . . . a stirring portrait of a vanished culture . . . a poignant chapter in the life-drama of a unique American writer' Newsweek 'Although it is sixty years since a new novel by Mr Roth last hit the bookshelves, it has been worth the wait' The Economist 'Fresh and touching' Wall Street Journal 'A precision of detail which brings the sounds from the tenements, the heat of the sidewalk steaming off the pages' Sunday Express 'A meticulous evocation of a now-distant episode of the American experience' New York Times Book Review Mercy of a Rude Stream: The Complete Novels includes 1) A Star Shines Over Mt. Morris Park 2) A Diving Rock on the Hudson 3) From Bondage 4) Requiem for Harlem.

'A landmark of the American literary century' Boston Globe Sixty years after the publication of his great modernist masterpiece, Call It Sleep, Henry Roth returned with Mercy of a Rude Stream - a sequence of four internationally-acclaimed epic novels of immigrant life in early-twentieth century New York. Ira Stigman's polarised life has never been more difficult. On one side is Edith Welles, his supporter, friend and lover; she believes in him. On the other is his shameful immigrant origins, his poverty, his family with their arguments and lack of sophistication. Then there is his incestuous relations with his sister and his cousin, who may be pregnant. This fourth and final volume, published posthumously, brings to a close one of America's most extraordinary literary odysseys. 'The literary comeback of the century' Vanity Fair 'As unquenchably vibrant with life as the immigrants whose existence it commemorates' Sunday Times 'A dynamic and moving event . . . a stirring portrait of a vanished culture . . . a poignant chapter in the life-drama of a unique American writer' Newsweek 'Although it is sixty years since a new novel by Mr Roth last hit the bookshelves, it has been worth the wait' The Economist 'Fresh and touching' Wall Street Journal 'A precision of detail which brings the sounds from the tenements, the heat of the sidewalk steaming off the pages' Sunday Express 'A meticulous evocation of a now-distant episode of the American experience' New York Times Book Review Mercy of a Rude Stream: The Complete Novels includes 1) A Star Shines Over Mt. Morris Park 2) A Diving Rock on the Hudson 3) From Bondage 4) Requiem for Harlem.

'A landmark of the American literary century' Boston Globe Sixty years after the publication of his great modernist masterpiece, Call It Sleep, Henry Roth returned with Mercy of a Rude Stream - a sequence of four internationally-acclaimed epic novels of immigrant life in early-twentieth century New York. The second novel in the internationally acclaimed six-volume sequence which began with MERCY OF A RUDE STREAM. Ira Stigman, now an adolescent in 1920s New York, is on the rack. All his friends seem to be paragons of achievement and sophistication, while his own life bears the taint of an impoverished immigrant background. Work on the trolleycars and selling soda at Yankee Stadium introduces him to an underworld of corruption and petty thieving, and all his choices seem to be the wrong ones. Worst of all, within his own family exists a temptation so dark that it has corroded Ira's very soul. A DIVING ROCK ON THE HUDSON is fearless in its depiction of a young man in the lower depths, yet in its glimpses of redemption it offers hope with the power of literature as a force for comprehension and forgiveness. 'The literary comeback of the century' Vanity Fair 'As unquenchably vibrant with life as the immigrants whose existence it commemorates' Sunday Times 'A dynamic and moving event . . . a stirring portrait of a vanished culture . . . a poignant chapter in the life-drama of a unique American writer' Newsweek 'Although it is sixty years since a new novel by Mr Roth last hit the bookshelves, it has been worth the wait' The Economist 'Fresh and touching' Wall Street Journal 'A precision of detail which brings the sounds from the tenements, the heat of the sidewalk steaming off the pages' Sunday Express 'A meticulous evocation of a now-distant episode of the American experience' New York Times Book Review Mercy of a Rude Stream: The Complete Novels includes 1) A Star Shines Over Mt. Morris Park 2) A Diving Rock on the Hudson 3) From Bondage 4) Requiem for Harlem.

David Schearl arrives in New York in his mother's arms to begin his new life as an immigrant in the 'Golden Land'. David is hated by his father - an angry, violent man unable to find his niche in the New World - but is fiercely loved and protected by his Yiddish-speaking mother. An innovative, multi-lingual novel, Call It Sleep subtly interweaves the overwhelming love between a mother and son with the terrors and anxieties David experiences, as he seeks to find his own identity amidst the cultural disarray of early twentieth-century America.

Sixty years after the publication of his great modernist masterpiece, Call It Sleep, Henry Roth, a retired waterfowl farmer already in his late eighties, shocked the literary world with the announcement that he had written a second novel. It was called, he reported, Mercy of a Rude Stream, the title inspired by Shakespeare, and it followed the travails of one Ira Stigman, whose family had just moved to New York s Jewish Harlem in that "ominous summer of 1914."

"It is like hearing that J. D. Salinger is preparing a sequel to The Catcher in the Rye," the New York Times Book Review pronounced, while Vanity Fair extolled Roth's new work as "the literary comeback of the century." Even more astonishing was that Roth had not just written a second novel but a total of four chronologically linked works, all part of Mercy of a Rude Stream. Dying in 1995 at the age of eighty-nine, Roth would not live to see the final two volumes of this tetralogy published, yet the reappearance of Mercy of a Rude Stream, a fulfillment of Roth's wish that these installments appear as one complete volume, allows for a twenty-first-century public to reappraise this late-in-life masterpiece, just as Call it Sleep was rediscovered by a new generation in 1964.

As the story unfolds, we follow the turbulent odyssey of Ira, along with his extended Jewish family, friends, and lovers, from the outbreak of World War I through his fateful decision to move into the Greenwich Village apartment of his muse and older lover, the seductive but ultimately tragic NYU professor Edith Welles. Set in both the fractured world of Jewish Harlem and the bohemian maelstrom of the Village, Mercy of a Rude Stream echoes Nabokov in its portrayal of sexual deviance, and offers a harrowing and relentless family drama amid a grand panorama of New York City in the 1910s and Roaring 20s.

Yet in spite of a plot that is fraught with depictions of menace, violence, and intense self-loathing, Mercy of a Rude Stream also contains a cathartic, even redemptive, overlay as "provocative as anything in the chapters of St. Augustine" (Los Angeles Times), in which an elder Ira, haunted by the sins of his youth, communes with his computer, Ecclesias, as he recalls how his family's traditional piety became corrupted by the inexorable forces of modernity. As Ira finally decides to get "the hell out of Harlem," his Proustian act of recollection frees him from the ravages of old age, and suddenly he is in his prime again, the entire telling of Mercy his final pronouncement.

Mercy of a Rude Stream is that rare work of fiction that creates, through its style and narration, a new form of art. Indeed, the two juxtaposed voices one of the "little boys swimming in a sea of glory," the other of one of those same boys "in old age being rudely swept to sea" creates a counterpoint, jarring yet oddly harmonious, that makes this prophetic American work such an lasting statement on the frailties of memory and the essence of human consciousness.

Mercy of a Rude Stream: The Complete Novels includes A Star Shines Over Mt. Morris Park, A Diving Rock on the Hudson, From Bondage, and Requiem for Harlem."

This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature.

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature.

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone

This "glorious, evocative, literary novel for the ages" (Los Angeles Times) has finally taken its place within the great canon of American fiction. Set during the Great Depression, against a backdrop of New York's glimmering skyscrapers and Los Angeles's seedy motor courts, this autobiographical work concludes the unparalleled saga of Henry Roth, whose classic Call It Sleep, published in 1934, went on to become one of Time's 100 best American novels of the twentieth century. With echoes of Nathanael West and John Steinbeck, An American Type is a heartrending statement about American identity and the universal transcendence of love.

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

This book is a facsimile reprint and may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages.

This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature.

When Henry Roth published his debut novel Call It Sleep in 1934, it was greeted with considerable critical acclaim though, in those troubled times, lackluster sales. Only with its paperback publication thirty years later did this novel receive the recognition it deserves----and still enjoys. Having sold-to-date millions of copies worldwide, " Call It Sleep" is the magnificent story of David Schearl, the "dangerously imaginative" child coming of age in the slums of New York.