John Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath during an astonishing burst of activity between June and October of 1938. Throughout the time he was creating his greatest work, Steinbeck faithfully kept a journal revealing his arduous journey toward its completion. The journal, like the novel it chronicles, tells a tale of dramatic proportions—of dogged determination and inspiration, yet also of paranoia, self-doubt, and obstacles. It records in intimate detail the conception and genesis of The Grapes of Wrath and its huge though controversial success. It is a unique and penetrating portrait of an emblematic American writer creating an essential American masterpiece.
Like Goethe, Emerson wanted to be the cultural historian and interpreter of his age--its business, politics, discoveries. The journals and notebooks included in this volume and covering in depth the years 1848 to 1851 reflect Emerson's preoccupations with the events of these often turbulent years in America. On his return to Concord from his successful lecture trip to England and visit to Paris in 1847-1848, Emerson resumed his familiar life of writer, thinker, and lecturer. Impressions of his recent European travels appear in passages in this volume which are used later in English Traits (1856). He writes of technological and scientific discoveries in America and abroad--one of which, the discovery of ether, was to involve his brother-in-law in legal embroilment. He ponders the meaning, for "the age" or "the times," of reports on the Dew textile mills in Lawrence, Massachusetts, of faster steamers daily breaking records, of new geological and paleontological findings, of theories of race, and many other matters that were coming increasingly to the fore in the mid-nineteenth century. Many passages on these topics, used first in lectures, later appear in his essays "Fate," "Wealth," and "Power" in Conduct of Life (1860). He was also adding to his critical biographies for Representative Men (1850), with special attention to Swedenborg, always a source of particular interest for Emerson. Between 1850 and 1853, Emerson traveled farther west to lecture than he had hitherto ventured--to Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and many other cities in the midwest. One notebook in the present volume records his customary percipient observations of places and people encountered during these western trips. The tragic drowning of Margaret Fuller Ossoli and her family on her return from Italy in 1850 prompted Emerson to consider a collaboration on her life and writings, and another notebook printed here contains her memorabilia, including original entries by Emerson. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli by Emerson, William Henry Charming, and James Freeman Clarke was published in 1852. Passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 brought to a boil something in Emerson that had long been simmering. Concerned with slavery, freedom, and the future of the black population in America more than his public record had shown, he now delivered himself of an outburst--pained, vitriolic, ironic--a more sustained response to a single issue than appears elsewhere in all his journals. In this latest move in a compounding national tragedy he could see only chicanery and deterioration, the crumbling of America's moral fiber. He saw the Fugitive Slave Law in a larger context of a sick age; like Tennyson and Arnold in England, he lamented in moods of spite and chagrin the loss of faith and of an old world where political men of honor stood firm for the moral law. Most of his journal outburst went into his addresses "The Fugitive Slave Law," 1851 and 1854.
In the summer of 1855, when the nineteen-year-old Sam Clements traveled from Saint Louis to Hannibal, Paris, and Florida, Missouri, and then to Keokuk, Iowa, he carried with him a notebook in which he entered French lessons, phrenological information, miscellaneous observations, and reminders about errands to be performed. This first notebook thus took the random form which would characterize most of those to follow. About the text: In order to avoid editorial misrepresentation and to preserve the texture of autograph documents, the entries are presented in their original, often unfinished, form with most of Clemens' irregularities, inconsistencies, errors, and cancellations unchanged. Clemens' cancellations are included in the text enclosed in angle brackets, thus ; editorially-supplied conjectural readings are in square brackets, thus [word]; hyphens within square brackets stand for unreadable letters, thus [--]; and editorial remarks are italicized and enclosed in square brackets, thus [blank page}- A slash separates alternative readings which Clemens left unresolved, thus word/word. The separation of entries is indicated on the printed page by extra space between lines; when the end of a manuscript entry coincides with the end of a page of the printed text, the symbol [#] follows the entry. A full discussion of textual procedures accompanies the tables of emendation and details of inscription in the Textual Apparatus at the end of each volume; specific textual problems are explained in headnotes or footnotes when unusual situations warrant.
Chenu was a French Dominican friar, a renowned historian, and a theologian with extraordinary creative insight. He shaped the Dominican study center, Le Saulchoir, as its director and as an influential professor from the late 1920s until he was removed by the Vatican in 1942 (for writing a theological program for the school that sounded much like the future Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World). He influenced two generations of scholars with his rare combination of scientific excellence and pastoral wisdom. Fifty years after Vatican II, historians are still discovering documents and letters that offer important insights into the Council's meaning. This brief journal written by Marie-Dominique Chenu, masterfully edited by Alberto Melloni, is such a document. It reveals the decisive role Chenu played in several initiatives that shaped the Council's character; but, more importantly, it brings to light the dynamic networking of bishops and theologians that lay behind the Council's achievement of so much in so few years. Covering the years 1962-1963, Chenu's Notebook allows readers to feel the drama of the Council's opening period. At the Council, he promoted and drafted its great Message to the World that was the Council's first published statement. In it, many of Chenu's key intuitions became part of an official church statement about its hope for the future: attention to the 'signs of the times', the integration of science and technology into the Church's pastoral message, and commitment to justice and the care of the poor. His Vatican II Notebook is an exciting peek into great moments in a great man's life.
Explores how memoirs of widowhood can help us understand the reality of bereavement and the critical role of writing and reading in recovery. The death of a beloved spouse after a lifetime of companionship is a life-changing experience. To help understand the reality of bereavement, Jeffrey Berman focuses on five extraordinary American writersJoan Didion, Sandra Gilbert, Gail Godwin, Kay Redfield Jamison, and Joyce Carol Oateseach of whom has written a memoir of spousal loss. In each chapter, Berman gives an overview of the writers life and art before widowhood, including her early preoccupation with death, and then discusses the writers memoir and her life as a widow. He discovers that writing was, for all of these authors, both a solace and a lifeline, enabling them to maintain bonds with their lost loved ones while simultaneously moving on with their lives. These memoirs of widowhood, Berman maintains, reveal not only courage and resilience in the face of loss, but also the critical role of writing and reading in bereavement and recovery. Writing Widowhood is a stunning achievement that combines biography, literary history, and theoretical and philosophical exploration into the nature of grief as well as mental illnessall seamlessly executed. Berman elegantly and lucidly conveys a range of theories and perspectives to suit both academic and general readers. Berman never compromises complexity while remaining accessible and straightforward throughout. Virginia L. Blum, author of Flesh Wounds: The Culture of Cosmetic Surgery Writing Widowhood contributes to the field of autobiography/biography, and particularly to womens writing within that generic field, by discussing five memoirs which Berman categorizes as the widow memoir. No other critic that I know has shaped commentaries into a newly defined genre. Bermans book, thus, makes an important contribution to the overall field. Linda Wagner-Martin, author of Telling Womens Lives: The New Biography
Allan Ginsberg was the leading poet and conscience of the Beat generation. Indian Journals collects Ginsberg’s writings from his trip to India in 1962–63.
“Surprising news!” With these words, Fr. Henri de Lubac, S.J., whose orthodoxy had been so vigorously attacked, responded to the announcement of his selection to participate in the 2nd Vatican Council. His participation as a theologian and expert would make a lasting impact on the Council, and his insights and comments are recorded in this long-awaited volume. These Notebooks trace the two years of preparation, the four conciliar sessions, and the three periods between sessions. They give us the opportunity to assist at the discussion of the schemas (initial drafts of conciliar texts), but also, during the meetings of the theological commission and the sub-commissions, at the elaboration and correction of the texts submitted to the Council fathers. The eminent theologian de Lubac is a sure guide for the reader, introducing us to the theological ferment of the Council and helping us to grasp what was at stake in the often animated debates. De Lubac does not hesitate to express clearly what he thinks of the theologians around him, of the new concepts appearing because of the Council, or of the problems he judges to be most serious for the Christian faith. These Notebooks invite us to a greater historical and theological understanding of the Council. Besides information about the numerous aspects of the conciliar assembly, what makes the testimony of these notebooks so captivating is the strongly rendered presence of men and their psychology. De Lubac excels in sketching the portrait of the participants with only a few words. Among the many interesting encounters, he tells of deepening his acquaintance with Josef Ratzinger, whom he describes as a “theologian as peaceable and kindly as he is competent”. In the same way, during the long discussion over the drafting of the constitution Gaudium et Spes, he observed the assertiveness of Karol Wojtyła, whose interventions struck him because of the seriousness, the rigor, and the solidity of his faith, which created in him a lively sense of spiritual friendship, which was reciprocated.
In the first biography of U.S. House Speaker John W. McCormack, author Garrison Nelson uncovers previously forgotten FBI files, birth and death records, and correspondence long thought lost or buried. For such an influential figure, McCormack tried to dismiss the past, almost erasing his legacy from the public's mind. John William McCormack: A Political Biography sheds light on the behind-the-curtain machinations of American politics and the origins of the modern-day Democratic party, facilitated through McCormack's triumphs. McCormack overcame desperate poverty and family tragedy in the Irish ghetto of South Boston to hold the second-most powerful position in the nation. By reinventing his family history to elude Irish Boston's powerful political gatekeepers, McCormack embarked on a 1928 - 1971 House career and from 1939-71, the longest house leadership career. Working with every president from Coolidge to Nixon, McCormack's social welfare agenda, which included Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, immigration reform, and civil rights legislation helped commit the nation to the welfare of its most vulnerable citizens. By helping create the Austin-Boston Connection, McCormack reshaped the Democratic Party from a regional southern white Protestant party to one that embraced urban religiously and racially diverse ethnics. A man free of prejudice, John McCormack was the Boston Brahmin's favorite Irishman, the South's favorite northerner, and known in Boston as "Rabbi John," the Jews' favorite Catholic.
