Tillie Olsen carved a permanent place in American literature on the strength of a single book, TELL ME A RIDDLE in 1962. This collection was widely hailed as a work of genius, in which the voices of ordinary Americans, black and white, male and female, were given their own rhythms and forms of expression. YONNONDIO, Olsen's only novel, was begun during the depression and completed in 1974. It tells the story of the Hollbrooks, an itinerant working-class family in middle-America during the thirties. Brutalised by poverty, they struggle to find a space to breathe, to dream and to create a bettter life for their children. Told in compelling, haunting prose, it is a profound and timeless story of the human will to survive.

Pillars of American literature, these two newly repackaged titles have been loved and admired by readers for decades. Set during the Depression, "Yonnondio: "From The Thirties is the timeless and hauntingly timely story of the Holbrook family, struggling for a more tolerable existence. Written by the author in the 1930s and rediscovered by her in the 1970s, "Yonnondio will always be an unfinished work that makes us long for more of that young author's brilliance. This reissue presents newly discovered fragments and scenes that satisfy some of that longing and give a more complete picture of the fate of the mother, Anna, one of literature's most believable and enduring woman. "Tell Me A Riddle is a collection of four stories: "I Stand Here Ironing," "Hey Sailor, What Ship?," "O Yes," and the title novella, which won the O. Henry Award in 1961. Anthologized over a hundred times, the stories live on in the hearts of readers everywhere. John Leonard provides a new introduction that is a personal reminiscence as well as reaffirmation of Olsen's place in American literature's pantheon of great writers.

First, published in 1978, Tulle Olsen's 'Silences' revolutionised literary studies and inspired an explosion of new creative voices. By exploring the social and economic conditions that make creativity possible, Olsen sheds new light into the gaps in the literary landscape and the canon. She reveals that working-class people, people of colour, and all women have in fact always written -- though their work has been officially ignored -- and she examines the forces they struggled against in order to create, forces that led in many cases to premature silence. With fascinating testimony from authors' diaries and letters, Olsen takes us inside the artistic process, examining the effects of poverty, family duties (especially motherhood), political and religious censorship, and rigid literary norms on writers ranging from Thomas Hardy and Herman Melville to Willa Cather, Virginia Woolf, and Sylvia Plath. For those disadvantaged by gender, class, or race, these obstacles loom even larger. In particular, Olsen makes the case that women writers have faced crushing odds, their talents underestimated, their achievements ignored, the themes of their writing scorned, their very attempt to write condemned as a breach of family duty -- and of feminine nature. And yet, as she shows, they have written. This special 25th anniversary edition includes an introduction tracing the impact of Silences on women's studies, women's writing, and women's publishing. It also provides a key document of Olsen's work: the famous reading lists that she assembled from her years of research in public libraries.

A century after her birth, Tillie Olsen's writing is as relevant as when it first appeared; indeed, the clarity and passion of her vision and style have, if anything, become even more striking over time. Collected here for the first time are several of Olsen's nonfiction pieces about the 1930s, early journalism pieces, and short fiction, including the four beautifully crafted, highly celebrated stories originally published as "Tell Me a Riddle" "I Stand Here Ironing," "Hey Sailor, What Ship?," "O Yes," and "Tell Me a Riddle." Also included, for the first time since it appeared in the 1971 Best American Short Stories, is "Requa I."

In these stories, as in all of her work, Olsen set a new standard for the treatment of women and the poor and for the depiction of their lives and circumstances. In her hands, the hard truths about motherhood and marriage, domestic life, labor, and political conviction found expression in language of such poetic intensity and depth that its influence continues to be felt today.

An introduction by Olsen's granddaughter, the poet Rebekah Edwards, and a foreword by her daughter Laurie Olsen provide a personal and generational context for the author's work.

"Tell Me a Riddle" renders an unforgettable portrait of a working-class couple when the gender-determined differences in their experiences of poverty and familial life give rise to bitter conflict after almost four decades of marriage. As she dies of cancer, Eva, the protagonist, recollects a revolutionary past that both critiques and offers hope for the present. Deborah Rosenfelt's introduction and the essays in this volume survey the critical reception of this highly acclaimed story, analyze its biographical and historical contexts, examine the text's language, structure, and spiritual and moral significance, and illuminate Olsen's relationship to the American Midwest, the American left, and the Jewish enlightenment tradition. This casebook includes an introduction by the editor, a chronology of Olsen's life, an authoritative text of "Tell Me a Riddle," relevant essays by Olsen, seven critical essays, and a bibliography. The contributors are Joanne Trautmann Banks, Constance Coiner, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Mara Faulkner, Elaine Neil Orr, Linda Ray Pratt, and Deborah Silverton Rosenfelt.