"A fully restored American political classic. . . . Now we can read it as it was written." --"Chicago Tribune"
Winner of the 1947 Pulitzer Prize, "All the King's Men" is one of the most famous and widely read works in American literature, and as relevant today as it was fifty years ago. Now it has been fully restored and reintroduced by literary scholar Noel Polk, textual editor of the works of William Faulkner. Polk presents the novel as it was originally written, revealing even greater energy, excitement, complexity, and subtlety of character in this landmark of letters.
"[Polk] should be commended for this restored edition of Warren's great novel. . . . Deeply imagined, beautifully written, ["All the King's Men"] is both a reckoning with the deepest forces of life and an edge-of-your seat page-turner."--"The Raleigh News and Observer"
"To read ["All the King's Men"] in this new edition is to be struck again by its raw power, its urgency and relevance."--"New Orleans Times-Picayune"
"The publication of a new, corrected edition of "All the King's Men" is welcome news for all who care about American literature." -- Joseph Blotner, author of "Robert Penn Warren: A Biography"
Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989), America's first Poet Laureate, won three Pulitzer Prizes and virtually every other major award given to U.S. writers.
Noel Polk is a professor of English at the University of Southern Mississippi. He lives in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
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In the last decade of his life, Robert Penn Warren remained a vibrant force in American literature, producing new works of poetry and nonfiction while also dealing courageously with the gradual decline of his health and the diminishment of his poetic powers. Toward Sunset, at a Great Height, 1980--1989, the sixth and final volume of the author's selected letters, provides crucial documentation of this period, containing Warren's correspondence with friends, family, fellow writers, editors, critics, and the scholars studying his works.

Warren published several volumes of poetry, including Being Here (1980), Rumor Verified (1981), and Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce (1983), and returned to nonfiction prose with Jefferson Davis Gets His Citizenship Back (1980) and the memoir Portrait of a Father (1988).

His letters reveal that he tried to begin writing a novel but was unable to make substantial progress on it, and that from 1985 on he became increasingly dissatisfied with his new poems. Until his death at age eighty-four, however, Warren maintained an active correspondence filled with news about his writings and travels, accounts of the lives of his wife and children, and a stoic attitude about his own physical decline as well as a solicitousness regarding the health of others, such as his brother, Thomas, and sister, Mary. He communicated with rising young scholars and encouraged younger poets he admired.

Toward Sunset, at a Great Height offers rich insights into the closing chapter of Robert Penn Warren's professional and personal life, making it an essential resource for understanding the full scope of the author's contribution to American letters.

One of America's great poets writes of his father, lost through death and discovered again through insistent recollection. A death in the family forces a re-sorting and reshaping of all that we can recall of times and people gone from us as we measure our identities by their remembered images.

While prowling in the past, Warren is drawn to likenesses between himself and his father, between himself and others of his family. The poet finds that his father too, in his long silent youth, ventured into the writing of poetry, as have so many, but in time put it away for other things. Gradually this elegy for his father becomes Warren's reverie on the many Warrens and Penns who live now only in his memory. We encounter his mother and his mother's mother, his father's Warren line thrown back over three generations, as he draws forth sameness, giving shape and full form and then sharp recognition to family members who were and must yet remain mysteries. Then we see that Warren is delineating the tenuous threads of all our many unsettled and fragmentary American family histories, that he is tracing all our steps from the coast over mountain trails into the dark wilderness to the west. With him, when we stop to consider our loved and lost ones, we realize the delicacy of our accepted relationships.

In this autobiographical essay and the accompanying poem sequence that echoes it, "Mortmain," Warren's look into the mystery of the past evokes for us the loss and recovery and wonder that death brings.

In 1979 Robert Penn Warren returned to his native Todd County, Kentucky, to attend ceremonies in honor of another native son, Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, whose United States citizenship had just been restored, ninety years after his death, by a special act of Congress. From that nostalgic journey grew this reflective essay on the tragic career of Jefferson Davis - "not a modern man in any sense of the word but a conservative called to manage what was, in one sense, a revolution". Jefferson Davis Gets His Citizenship Back is also a meditation by one of our wisest and most beloved men of letters on the ironies of American history and the paradoxes of the modern South.

" Considered her finest work and an American classic, Roberts's novel traces the coming of age of Ellen Chesser, the daughter of a poor itinerant farmer. Against all privations and the forces that would subdue her, Ellen is sustained by a sense of wonder and by an awareness of her own being. Reduced to the bare elements of life, her world becomes a ceremony of daily duties that bind her to the natural world and her family. The Time of Man stands as a beautifully written tribute to the human spirit.

Explore over 450 of the most magical, extraordinary and lesser-known woods and forests in England, Scotland and Wales with this unique, practical and fully illustrated book. Featuring stunning photography and lively travel writing, it is divided into easy-to-navigate geographical sections - Southwest, South and East, Wales, Central and North, and Scotland - and covers everything from the best campsites, bothies and quirky accommodation through to wild swimming, walking trails, types of woodland and forest, cycling routes, waterfalls, canoeing, wildflowers and wildlife, dark skies and stargazing, foraging, lost ruins and sacred, mystical and haunted sites. Wild Woods reveals life-affirming ways to connect with wild places through adventure and is the perfect book for both families and wilderness lovers seeking new experiences well off the beaten track. Also included is a series of 'Best for.' recommendations, from 'Best for Lost Ruins' to 'Best for Charismatic Wildlife', as well as Untamed Waters, Caves and Canyons, and Quirky Stays among others. High-quality photography illustrates a selection of sites and a number of featured adventures are included. With Bradt's Wild Woods visit historic forests such as Epping, Sherwood and the New Forest. Discover ancient and notable trees, healing springs and hidden castles and lose yourself in Britain's largest, wildest and most ancient woods and forests. Detailed, user-friendly instructions help to create wild weekend escapes and you can also learn about 'lost beasts' - megafauna such as wolves - and the evolution of ancient woodland. The legacy of royal forests and private chases is also covered. Whatever your interest in Britain's woods and forests, Bradt's Wild Woods is the ideal guide and companion.

Robert Penn has saddled up nearly every day of his adult life. In his late twenties, he pedaled 25,000 miles around the world. Today he rides to get to work, sometimes for work, to bathe in air and sunshine, to travel, to go shopping, to stay sane, and to skip bath time with his kids. He's no Sunday pedal pusher. So when the time came for a new bike, he decided to pull out all the stops. He would build his dream bike, the bike he would ride for the rest of his life; a customized machine that reflects the joy of cycling.

"It's All About the Bike "follows Penn's journey, but this book is more than the story of his hunt for two-wheel perfection. En route, Penn brilliantly explores the culture, science, and history of the bicycle. From artisanal frame shops in the United Kingdom to California, where he finds the perfect wheels, via Portland, Milan, and points in between, his trek follows the serpentine path of our love affair with cycling. It explains why we ride.

"It's All About the Bike" is, like Penn's dream bike, a tale greater than the sum of its parts. An enthusiastic and charming tour guide, Penn uses each component of the bike as a starting point for illuminating excursions into the rich history of cycling. Just like a long ride on a lovely day, "It's All About the Bike" is pure joy- enriching, exhilarating, and unforgettable.

Robert Penn has worked as a lawyer, waiter, contractor, DJ, photographer, and journalist-and biked to every single job. He writes for the "Financial Times," the "Observer," and Conde Nast "Traveler," as well as a host of cycling publications. Penn lives in Wales with his wife and three children.

Praise from the UK for "It's All About the Bike":

" A] gem of a book." -"Economist"

A tribute to the natural history of some of our most iconic British woods. The National Trust manages hundreds of woods, covering over 60,000 acres of England and Wales. They include many of the oldest woodlands in the land and some of the oldest living things of any kind - trees that are thousands of years old. From Dean to Epping, from Hatfield to Sherwood, this book covers the natural history of our forests and how they have changed the face of our landscape. Covering the different species of trees that give our woods their unique characters, the plants and animals that inhabit them and the way their appearance changes throughout the seasons, Woods is a fascinating and beautifully illustrated celebration of Britain's trees and the ancient stories that surround them.

'Charming, important . . . a journey of discovery' Telegraph Over the course of a year, Robert Penn learns how to plant, harvest, thresh and mill his own wheat, in order to bake bread for his family. In returning to this pre-industrial practice, he tells the fascinating story of our relationship with bread: from the domestication of wheat in the Fertile Crescent at the dawn of civilization, to the rise of mass-produced loaves and the resurgence in homebaking today. Gathering knowledge and wisdom from experts around the world - farmers on the banks of the Nile, harvesters in the American Midwest and Parisian boulangers - Penn reconnects the joy of making and eating bread with a deep appreciation for the skill and patience required to cultivate its key ingredient. This book is a celebration of the millennia-old craft of breadmaking, and how it is woven into the story of humanity. 'Compelling, vivid . . . Slow Rise will be welcomed by the new bread geeks' Spectator

An exuberant tale of craftsmanship for nature lovers and rugged outdoor types everywhere Robert Penn cut down an ash tree to see how many things could be made from it. After all, ash is the tree we have made the greatest and most varied use of over the course of human history. Journeying from Wales across Europe and Ireland to the USA, Robert finds that the ancient skills and knowledge of the properties of ash, developed over millennia making wheels and arrows, furniture and baseball bats, are far from dead. The book chronicles how the urge to understand and appreciate trees still runs through us all like grain through wood.

All the King's Men is considered the finest novel ever written on American politics. Set in the 1930s, this book traces the rise and fall of Willie Stark, who resembles the real-life Huey 'Kingfish' Long of Louisiana. Stark begins his political career as an idealistic man of the people but soon becomes corrupted by success.

Remember the Alamo! is the acclaimed classic accounts of one of the most thrilling moments in the history of the United States frontier. The battle for the Alamo was an epic event in the fight for Texas independence from Mexico. Davy Crockett, Colonel Jim Bowie and Colonel Travis are just three of the legendary and colorful heroes whose courageous and doomed defense of the Alamo against an overwhelming Mexican army led by General Santa Anna earned them immortality. Their valiant stand and death inspired the rallying cry, 'Remember the Alamo! that inspired Texans to continue their struggle and ultimate win their independence from Mexico.

"Here is a tidbit of news. Sunday afternoon [LSU's] President Smith took me for an automobile ride and asked if a literary quarterly could be edited here if he could get the jack in large quantities. I was not coy.... The magazine will be called the Southern Review".

-- Robert Penn Warren to Allen Tate March 20, 1935

"Cross your fingers and pray that Louisiana doesn't go broke!"

-- Warren to Frank Owsley March 21, 1935

at the beginning of 1935, Robert Penn Warren was destined for arguably the most crucial period in his distinguished career. Having escaped the brink of unemployment the previous fall to join fellow Vanderbilt alumnus and Rhodes scholar Cleanth Brooks on the English faculty at Louisiana State University (which was enjoying a boom thanks to the favoritism shown by the Long regime), the young author was poised to establish himself, against the backdrop of the Great Depression and America's belated entry into World War II, as a compelling new voice, perhaps the most versatile writer of his generation.

Continuing where Volume One of the Selected Letters left off, the missives from his Baton Rouge years show Warren exploring and testing the boundaries of his genius on a number of simultaneous fronts. Editing the Southern Review with Brooks was the center of his working life, and it offered him an almost immediate springboard to prominence on both sides of the Atlantic. Warren was determined to establish and maintain the stature of the quarterly even as he systematically nurtured the talent of a younger generation of writers that included Eudora Welty, Randall Jarrell, Peter Taylor, and John Berryman. He attended to his own writing as well and not only emerged as acelebrated poet but also published his first major fiction. During the same period, he and Brooks drew directly upon their classroom challenges to design and launch a series of textbooks that gradually transformed the teaching of poetry and fiction in American colleges and universities.

What any number of commentators have called Warren's "protean" energy is in full evidence in these letters. The range and sheer diversity of his correspondence, whether with old friends, established literary figures, hopeful young writers, his beloved wife Cinina, recalcitrant academic administrators, or sometimes troublesome publishers, reveal an extraordinarily keen mind and heightened imagination operating in concert with optimum efficiency. Scrupulously edited and thoroughly annotated by William Bedford Clark with an eye toward the needs of the lay reader as well as the specialist, Warren's letters have the immediacy of skillful autobiography.

This is a new release of the original 1961 edition.

Contributing Authors Include Nathan Scott, Walter Sullivan, Herbert Read, And Many Others.

Portrait of the tormented liberator by America's first poet laureate.

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

In the summer of 1863, Adam Rosenzweig leaves a Bavarian ghetto and sails for the United States to fight for the North in the Civil War. Fired by revolutionary idealism inherited from his father, he hopes to aid a cause that he believes to be as simple as he knows it to be just.

Over the course of his journey, Adam becomes a witness to a world whose complexity does not readily conform to his ideals of liberty. When his twisted foot attracts unwanted attention on his voyage to America, he is threatened with return to Europe. He jumps ship in New York, only to be caught up in the violence and horror of the anti-draft riots. Eventually he reaches the Union Army, serving not as a soldier but as a civilian provisioner's assistant. Adam's encounters with others -- among them a wealthy benefactor, a former slave, an exiled Southerner, a bushwhacker and his wife -- further challenge the absolutism that informs his view of the world and of his place in it.

First published in 1961, Wilderness remains a profoundly provocative meditation on the significance of the Civil War and the varieties of human experience. This new edition of the novel includes an insightful introductory essay by James H. Justus, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Indiana University and author of The Achievement of Robert Penn Warren.