October 2005

Henry Adams and the Making of America

October 2005 The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lincoln at Gettysburg looks at the books Henry Adams (1838-1918) wrote prior to The Education of Henry Adams, particularly the nine volumes of history he wrote early in his career that illuminated the growth of the United States during the years 1800-1817. Wills argues persuasively that these “little read, appreciated, or studied” works constitute “the non-fiction prose masterpiece of the nineteenth century in America.”

Melville: His World and Work

Andrew Delbanco is an academic who has the rare ability to produce scholarly prose that dazzles the reader with its grace and accessibility. This new treatment of Herman Melville (1819-1891 offers a fresh consideration of the novelist and his body of work. “Why write about a writer’s life?” Delbanco asks of his motivation to take on the project. Part of the reason, he answers, has to do with the prospect of “watching someone make something beautiful and enduring out of the recalcitrance and fleetingness of life.”