Biography

Melville at Sea Melville at Sea

In 1851, when the 32-year-old Herman Melville published his masterpiece Moby-Dick, he was already known as a man who'd consorted with cannibals. His first book, Typee: A Peep at P...

May 2, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Brenda Wineapple

Publishers Caught in a Web Publishers Caught in a Web

Jason Epstein's Book Business: Publishing Past Present and Future is the third memoir of a major American life in book publishing to reach print in less than two years. It is at ...

Jan 26, 2001 / Books & the Arts / Gayle Feldman

The Führer Furor The Führer Furor

Chaplinesque Rapscallion New Leader of Germany's National Socialist Party       --The Onion "I have nothing to say about Hitler." With this...

Jan 5, 2001 / Books & the Arts / Paul Reitter

After the Renaissance After the Renaissance

A quarter-million people thronged Abraham Lincoln's Memorial that day. In the sweltering August humidity, executive secretary Roy Wilkins gravely announced that Dr. William Edwar...

Nov 27, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Kevin Brown

Clipping the Yankee Clipper Clipping the Yankee Clipper

The twentieth century produced few American heroes like Joe DiMaggio. He was arguably the best all-around ballplayer who'd ever taken the field, a unique combination of power, sp...

Nov 27, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Peter Schrag

What Is What Was? What Is What Was?

In the Acknowledgments section of his biography of Saul Bellow, James Atlas quotes a somewhat greater biographer, Samuel Johnson: "We know how few can portray a living acquaintan...

Nov 27, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Richard Stern

Another ‘October Surprise’ Another ‘October Surprise’

Poor Anthony Summers--he writes a 600-page book on Nixon based on massive and exhaustive research, including interviews with a thousand people and 120 pages of documentation--and...

Oct 19, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Jon Wiener

The Devil and Mr. Hearst The Devil and Mr. Hearst

William Randolph Hearst is one of those people we all know was very, very famous but are never quite sure why, or what we are to think of him.

Jun 22, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Dana Frank

The Devil in Mr. Marx The Devil in Mr. Marx

At a quarter to 3 in the afternoon on March 14, 1883, one of the world's brainiest men, Karl Marx, ceased to think. He passed away peacefully in his favorite armchair.

Jun 22, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Andy Merrifield

McCullers: Canon Fodder? McCullers: Canon Fodder?

What makes an American writer? In today's narrow, backlashed literary market the chain of command is quite clear. The "greats" are Updike, Pynchon, Mailer, Bellow and Roth.

Jun 8, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Sarah Schulman

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