Features a comprehensive collection of the author's works, including such classics as "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Raven" and lesser-known works such as "Loss of Breath" and "Spirits of the Dead."

In this book, Angelou details what brought her mother to send her away, and unearths the well of emotions she experienced long afterward as a result. For the first time, she reveals the triumphs and struggles of being the daughter of Vivian Baxter, an indomitable spirit whose petite size belied her larger-than-life presence, a presence absent during much of the author's early life. When her marriage began to crumble, Vivian famously sent three-year-old...

The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922) is an anthology by James Weldon Johnson. Alongside some of his own poems, Johnson includes the work of such legendary artists as Paul Laurence Dunbar, W. E. B. Du Bois, Jessie Fauset, and Georgia Douglas Johnson. Carefully selected and supported with a masterful preface by Johnson, the poems herein reflect a range of voices, styles, and subjects drawn from tradition and experience alike. In his preface, Johnson...

In 1930 the Committee on Traditions and Ideals of the Vermont Commission on Country Life chose to devote a season's survey to Vermont's folk-songs.

Appearing in 1855, My Bondage and My Freedom is the second autoobiography written by Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), a man who was born into slavery in Maryland and who went on to become the most famous antislavery autHor, orator, philosopher, essayist, historian, intellectual, statesman and freedom-fighter in US history. An instant bestseller, Douglass's autobiography tells the story of his early life as lived in 'bondage' and of his later life as...

The 'Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table' is a collection of essays written by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. The essays were originally published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1857 and 1858 before being collected in book form. The essays take the form of a chiefly one-sided dialogue between the unnamed Author and the other residents of a New England boarding house who are known only by their profession, location at the table or other defining characteristics....

In Jackson, Mississippi, in 1962, there are lines that are not crossed. With the civil rights movement exploding all around them, three women start a movement of their own, forever changing a town and the way women--black and white, mothers and daughters--view one another.

A black family is united in love and pride as they struggle to overcome poverty and harsh living conditions, in the 1959 play about an embattled Chicago family.

"A powerful, timely debut, The Turner House marks a major new contribution to the story of the American family. The Turners have lived on Yarrow Street for over fifty years. Their house has seen thirteen children grown and gone--and some returned; it has seen the arrival of grandchildren, the fall of Detroit's East Side, and the loss of a father. The house still stands despite abandoned lots, an embattled city, and the inevitable shift outward to...