The four volume set consists of ninety-seven of the pamphlets originally published as the University of Minnesota pamphlets on American writers. Some have been revised and updated.

Two small boys and an old caretaker are all that stand between the people of their town and the hypnotic attraction of the Dark Carnival.

Clarence Budington (""Bud") Kelland (1881-1964) was an American writer who described himself as "the best second-rate writer in America". Largely forgotten now, Kelland had a long career as a writer of fiction and short stories, stretching from 1913 to 1960. He was published in many magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post and The American Magazine. His output also included sixty novels and some two hundred short stories. His best known juvenile...

"The six episodes that tell of the experiences of a girl, in her twenties and on her own in New York, fuse into both a portrait of an individual and a revelation of a distinct social milieu. From the opening section ... until the final episode ... a fascinating cast of characters ... enter this dramatic quest for identity"--Cover

An anthology of sixteen previously unpublished works includes selections from the iconic writer's early literary career and is complemented by more than a dozen of his original works of art.

A Mencken Chrestomathy is full of the iconoclastic common sense that marked H. L. Mencken's astonishing career as the premier American social critic of the twentieth century.