Justin Kaplan

Traces the lives of cousins William Waldorf Astor and John Jacob Astor IV, rivals who pursued separate ambitions, built the original Waldorf-Astoria hotel, and influenced social behavior before John Jacob perished aboard the Titanic.

In this marvelous anecdotal history, Justin Kaplan—Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer of Mark Twain—vividly brings to life a glittering, bygone age.Endowed with the largest private fortunes of their day, cousins John Jacob Astor IV and William Waldorf Astor vied for primacy in New York society, producing the grandest hotels ever seen in a marriage of ostentation and efficiency that transformed American social behavior.Kaplan exposes it all in exquisite detail, taking readers from the 1890s to the Roaring Twenties in a combination of biography, history, architectural appreciation, and pure reading pleasure.

"Novelist Anne Bernays, born in 1930, and biographer Justin Kaplan, born in 1925, both natives of New York, came of age in the 1950s, when the pent-up energies of the Depression years and World War II were at flood tide. Back Then, written in two separate voices, is the candid, anecdotal account of two children of privilege, one from New York's East Side, the other from the West Side, pursuing careers in publishing and eventually leaving to write their own books. They both sought self-knowledge and realization through years of psychoanalysis. They brushed shoulders with celebrities like William Faulkner, Somerset Maugham, Marlene Dietrich, and Anatole Broyard.". "Before Bernays and Kaplan met and married, each had enjoyed the sexual and social freedom that, along with the dark shadow of McCarthyism and the Cold War, was among the distinguishing marks of the 1950s. In many other respects, the story they tell could almost as well be about an earlier era."--BOOK JACKET.

Why are we so often annoyed when somebody gets our name wrong? Because our sense of self is involved, and our names touch on every aspect of our lives. Prospective parents pore over baby-naming books, believing that the right choice will set their infant on the right track. Immigrants change their names to assimilate into American society; blacks to recover their African roots or to establish an Islamic identity; movie stars to conform to Hollywood images of WASP-ness, high society, or exoticism. Drawing on social and literary history, psychology and anthropology, anecdotes, and life stories, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Justin Kaplan and celebrated novelist Anne Bernays have created a fascinating account of names and naming in contemporary society that touches on class structure, ethnic and religious practices, manners, and everyday life. Their primary focus is the United States, which from its beginnings has been conspicuously preoccupied with identity, self-definition, and self-invention while sharing the concerns of other societies distant in time and place.

"Although this biography of Mark Twain begins when Twain is 31... the book is a full account of Twain, his life and his work related both to his early years and to the 'Gilded Age' of his mature life."

Includes information of Steffens' works as a muckraker journalist and his visits with Mexican and Russian revolutionaries.

Old times on the Mississippi (The Atlantic Montly, Jan., Feb., March, April, May, June, and August, 1875) -- The Jumping frog (Sketches, new and old) -- The Great landslide case (Roughing it) -- Jim Blaine and his grandfather's ram (Roughing it) -- A True story (Sketches, new and old) -- Accident insurance-etc. (Mark Twain's speeches) -- The Facts concerning the recent carnival of crime in Connecticut (Tom Sawyer abroad) -- The story of a speech (Mark Twain's speeches) -- Jim Baker's bluejay (A Tramp abroad) -- The Private history of a campaign that failed (American claimant) -- Letter to the earth (Letters from the earth) -- Fenimore Cooper's literary offenses (In defense of Harriet Shelley) -- How to tell a story (The $30,000 bequest) -- Corn-pone opinions (Europe and elsewhere) -- To the person sitting in darkness (Europe and elsewhere) -- The War prayer (Europe and elsewhere) -- The Turning point of my life (What is man?) -- The Man that corrupted Hadleyburg -- The Mysterious stranger.

A richly diverse gathering of new and familiar voices, on subjects new and old, The Harper Single Volume American Literature takes the reader on a journey through America's literary past and ever-projecting future. Eleven cultural portfolios provide windows into historic moments in our literary past and present; superbly informative and readable period introductions further deepen the reader's understanding of the America from which this literature evolved. Five great plays, an unprecedented wealth of complete works, approximately one hundred carefully chosen black and white images - a collection both deeper and broader than other single volume anthologies. The Harper Single Volume American Literature, Third Edition has it all.