Don Marquis

Stories and poems relate the misadventures of Archy, the literary cockroach, and his feline friend Mehitabel.

"Archy and his racy pal Mehitabel are timeless," noted E. B. White in his essay on Don Marquis and his famous creations, and the undimmed enthusiasm of several generations of fans - who every year buy thousands of copies of Marquis' earlier collections - testifies to their appeal. A whimsical and sophisticated sage, archy the cockroach entertained readers with iconoclastic observations on pretensions, politics, and our place in the cosmos during Marquis' career as a New York newspaper columnist in the 1920s and '30s. Allegedly tapping out stories at night by leaping from key to key on Marquis' typewriter, archy couldn't quite manage the shift key for capital letters. Although his tales appeared in lower case, his views achieved a level grand enough to solidify Marquis' reputation as an American humorist in the tradition of Mark Twain, Joel Chandler Harris, and Ring Lardner. Archyology brings together selected "lost" tales that literally were rescued from oblivion by Jeff Adams, who found them among papers stored in a steamer trunk since Marquis' death.

"This archy omnibus is complete with three famous Marquis titles - archy and mehitabel, archy's life of mehitabel, and archy does his part - along with the incomparable illustrations of George Herriman and now an affectionate introduction by E. B. White. . . . archy, the gay little cockroach, and mehitabel, the morally careless cat, first made their appearance in Don Marquis's Sun Dial column back in 1916-1918. . . . Perhaps the best description of Marquis's humor has been given by E. B. White: Marquis was, and is, to me a very funny man, his product rich and satisfying, full of sad beauty, bawdy adventure, political wisdom, and wild surmise, full of pain and jollity, full of exact and inspired writing.

Marvelous, funny, satirical. Marquis posits that humans would not be happy in a "perfect state", and so must allow one vice. He proceeds to describe his idea of the Almost Perfect State, poking fun at various social and political trends of the day. One of my all-time favorite books. Highly recommended, and very hard to find in hard-copy.

Foundling boy's autobiography. Involves travel with patent medicine show.

Selections include: ... - [Young Goodman Brown]( by Nathaniel Hawthorne ... - [An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge]( by Ambrose Bierce ... - [A Pair of Silk Stockings]( by Kate Chopin - [The Cask of Amontillado]( - [Fall of the House of Usher]( - [The Glass Menagerie]( by Tennesse Williams

Domesticated since the time of the Pharaohs, but never completely tamed, cats still retain their sense of mystery and fascinate those privileged enough to share their lives. The inimitable free spirit of the eat is celebrated in this 'purr-fectly' charming selection of cat stories, anecdotes, essays and poems. In Great Cat Tales you will find a wealth of tributes from both famous authors of the past and well-loved contemporary writers. The wide- ranging contents embrace Leigh Hunt's "The Cat by the Fire" and Rudyard Kipling's myth-like "The Cat That Walked by Himself;" Charles Dudley Warner's famous and touching portrait "Calvin the Cat;" eerie murderous instincts in Patricia Highsmith's "Ming's Biggest Prey;" uproarious comedy in "The Story of Webster" by P.G. Wodehouse; and poems by, among others, Emily Dickinson, John Keats and W.B. Yeats. Essential reading for cat-lovers everywhere, Great Cat Tales is a deft balance of old favorites and new and delightful surprises. --front flap