William Styron

Before writing his memoir of madness, Darkness Visible, William Styron was best known for his ambitious works of fiction--including The Confessions of Nat Turner and Sophie's Choice. Styron also created personal but no less powerful tales based on his real-life experiences as a U.S. Marine. The Suicide Run collects five of these meticulously rendered narratives. One of them--"Elobey, Annobon, and Corisco"--is published here for the first time. In "Blankenship," written in 1953, Styron draws on his stint as a guard at a stateside military prison at the end of World War II. "Marriott, the Marine" and "The Suicide Run"--which Styron composed in the early 1970s as part of an intended novel that he set aside to write Sophie's Choice--depict the surreal experience of being conscripted a second time, after World War II, to serve in the Korean War. "My Father's House" captures the isolation and frustration of a soldier trying to become a civilian again. In "Elobey, Annobon, and Corisco," written late in Styron's life, a soldier attempts to exorcise the dread of an approaching battle by daydreaming about far-off islands, visited vicariously through his childhood stamp collection. Perhaps the last volume from one of literature's greatest voices, The Suicide Run brings to life the drama, inhumanity, absurdity, and heroism that forever changed the men who served in the Marine Corps.From the Hardcover edition.

A collection of prose essays.

Presents twenty-five interviews with the novelist from 1951-1984.

In the summer of 1985, severe depression left William Styron hopeless and suicidal. His memoir centers on his hospitalization and subsequent road to recovery. Styron’s message reminds us that as bleak as it may seem, there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel. Regardless of your experience, Styron will stir up strong emotions. Darkness Visible provides deep insight into what it’s like to live with depression—insight that will resonate with survivors and help those who aren’t afflicted develop a greater understanding of the pain that depression sufferers are going through. Styron’s utter candor makes this book truly impactful.

"Including significant previously uncollected material, My Generation is the definitive gathering of the fruits of this beloved writer's five decades of public life. Here is the William Styron unafraid to peer into the darkest corners of the 20th century or to take on the complex racial legacy of the United States. But here too is Styron writing about his daily walk with his dog, musing on the Modern Library's "100 Greatest Books," and offering personal insight into the extraordinary array of noted contemporary figures he interacted with over the course of an illustrious career. These are the people and events, tragic and joyful, historical and intimate, that aroused Styron's unrivalled curiosity"--

'This book has saved my life', say thousands of people who have changed their lives forever after reading Depression: The Way Out of Your Prison over the past decade.Depression is the experience of a terrible isolation, of being alone in a prison. But by understanding how we build the prison of depression we can dismantle it forever. Dorothy Rowe gives us a way of understanding depression, allowing us to take charge of our lives. She shows it is not an illness requiring drugs but a defence we use to hold ourselves together when we feel our lives falling apart.This completely updated second edition takes account of recent changes in the NHS and includes information on services available for non-British readers. Those buying a further copy of this popular book will be interested to see new case histories alongside news about some of the people mentioned in the first edition.Author of ten bestsellers on life and its problems, Dorothy Rowe is a clinical psychologist who now devotes her time to research, writing and teaching. Her work is read across the world in fourteen different languages and she is a sought-after speaker and commentator on depression and a wide range of psychological conditions.

"All Who Knew Willie Morris claim and treasure a part of him. After his sudden death on August 2, 1999, there was a spontaneous and immediate outpouring of praise of him and his works. In this time of grief his close friends, literary colleagues, political figures, and some of the nation's most notable journalists sounded their acclamation of this indelibly influential writer.". "This book of memorials collects twenty-seven eulogies and tributes. These came from Yazoo City, his boyhood hometown, from his native state of Mississippi, from literary America, from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and from the Oval Office."--BOOK JACKET.

Two works about soldiers in a time of dubious peace by a writer of eloquence and moral authority. With stylistic panache and vitriolic wit, Styron depicts conflicts between men of somewhat more than average intelligence and the military machine. In The Long March, a novella, two Marine reservists fight to retain their dignity while on a grueling exercise staged by a posturing colonel. The uproariously funny play In the Clap Shack charts the terrified passage of a young recruit through the prurient inferno of a Navy hospital VD ward. In both works, Styron wages a gallant defense of the free individual--and serves up a withering indictment of a system that has no room for individuality or freedom.--From publisher description.

From 1947 to 1949, William Styron twice attempted to write a novel under the working title Inheritance of Night. On the third attempt he produced the award-winning Lie Down in Darkness, which when published in September 1951 established him as one of the most promising writers of his generation. Published here, in facsimile form, are the long-lost drafts of Styron's earliest version of Lie Down in Darkness. Although Styron began the narrative twice, he realized both times that his writing was derivative and his characters not yet fully conceived. These drafts show young Styron feeling his way into the story with various narrative voices and strategies, attempting to work out his plot. Influences from William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Robert Penn Warren are apparent in the text, and there is a character named Marcus Bonner who is an early rendition of Stingo in Sophie's Choice. The typescript drafts of Inheritance of Night for many years were thought to have been lost, but in 1980 were discovered in the files of one of Styron's former literary agents. These drafts eventually made their way to the archive of Styron's papers assembled at Duke University Library. This general interest trade volume is also available in two different limited editions for collectors: a lettered, signed, and boxed edition and a numbered, signed edition. With a preface by Styron and an introduction by James L.W. West III, these drafts afford much insight into the creation of Lie Down in Darkness and the writing of a major twentieth-century American writer.

"The March of the Ten Thousand is one of the most famous military adventures in the ancient world. Its fearless army of Greek mercenaries marched through western Asia (modern Turkey and Iraq) in 401 BC to 399 BC, their hopes and hardships recounted by Xenophon the Athenian, an admiring pupil of Socrates. Xenophon's history of the Long March, or Anabasis, became a classic of Greek literature." "In this book, twelve leading scholars explore the Anabasis, a deceptively simple and profoundly rich source of social and cultural history and the mentality of the ancient Greek participants. The contributors explore a wide range of topics, from Xenophon's values, motives and manner as a writer, to the outlook of his companions as mercenary soldiers, from his descriptions of religion in soldiers' lives to their relations with women, boys and the many foreign peoples encountered during the march."--BOOK JACKET.

This is a controversial historical novel purporting to tell the story of Nat Turner, a black American slave who led a large slave revolt in Virginia in 1831. The novel attempts to explore the reasons for the bloodthirsty revolt in which Turner and his followers killed a number of white plantation owners before being apprehended, tried and hanged.