Although better known today for his novels, in the 1920s F. Scott Fitzgerald ranked among the top writers of magazine fiction. Fitzgerald represented the dreams and aspirations of the post-World War I generation in his life as well as his works. With his glamorous wife, Zelda, and his cosmopolitan social circle, he projected the perfect image for narrating tales of restless youth in a hectic world. These short stories offer insights into many themes, characters, and techniques that emerged in Fitzgerald's later works. The title tale, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," reflects his preoccupation with life's fleeting nature. "Winter Dreams," written three years before The Great Gatsby, shares the concept of commitment to an idealized dream. "Babes in the Woods," developed during the author's Princeton days, evidences the roots of This Side of Paradise. Thirteen other selections offer further insights into the author's growing skills as well as examples of his sparkling prose, understated wit, and deft characterizations.
This evocative study of a water Goddess among the Igbo of Lake Oguta in southeastern Nigeria, thoroughly explores the rituals, beliefs and social organization associated with rituals of women's power. A form of Mammy Wata found through coastal Western Africa...
These pages give us her searing prayer for the dead of 9/11, her Nobel lecture on the power of language, her searching meditation on Martin Luther King Jr., her heart-wrenching eulogy for James Baldwin. She looks deeply into the fault...
After enjoying years as a popular journalist and poet, intellectual and freethinker Gerald Massey turned his vast studies in the field of Egyptology into A Book of the Beginnings, a bold statement that the origin of all civilization lays in...