U.S.A.: The 42nd Parallel; Nineteen Nineteen [1919]; The Big Money (The Library of America Series Book 85) [Trilogy]

Dos Passos, John

ISBN 10: 1883011140 / ISBN 13: 9781883011147

Editore: The Library of America, 1996

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First thus. Includes publisher's slipcase. Minor smudge to top slipcase edge, otherwise an excellent copy. 1996 Hard Cover. 1288 pp. Original red cloth, gilt titles and rules, ribbon marker bound in. The U.S.A. Trilogy is a major work of American writer John Dos Passos, comprising the novels The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919, also known as Nineteen Nineteen (1932), and The Big Money (1936). The three books were first published together in a single volume titled U.S.A by Harcourt Brace in January, 1938. The trilogy employs an experimental technique, incorporating four different narrative modes: fictional narratives telling the life stories of twelve fictional characters; collages of newspaper clippings and song lyrics labeled 'Newsreel'; individually labeled short biographies of public figures of the time such as Woodrow Wilson and Henry Ford; and fragments of autobiographical stream of consciousness writing labeled 'Camera Eye.' The trilogy covers the historical development of American society during the first three decades of the twentieth century. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked U.S.A. Trilogy 23rd on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. This edition is part of the Library of America series, published by a non-profit organization whose goal is to keep classic works of American literature and history in print as a way of preserving cultural heritage.

Codice articolo 2350048

Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: U.S.A.: The 42nd Parallel; Nineteen Nineteen [1919]; The Big Money (The Library of America Series Book 85) [Trilogy]
• Editore: The Library of America
• Data di pubblicazione: 1996
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 1883011140
• ISBN 13: 9781883011147
• Rilegatura: Hard Cover
• Edizione: First Thus.
• Condizione: Near Fine
• Condizione della sovraccoperta: Near Fine
• Peso: 33 once

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

Unique among American books for its epic scope and panoramic social sweep, U.S.A. has long been acknowledged as a monument of modern fiction. Now The Library of America presents an exclusive one-volume edition of this enduring masterwork by John Dos Passos, including for the first time detailed notes and a chronicle of the world events that serve as a backdrop.

In the novels that make up the trilogy—The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money—Dos Passos creates an unforgettable collective portrait of America, shot through with sardonic comedy and brilliant social observation. He interweaves the careers of his characters and the events of their time with a narrative verve and breathtaking technical skill that make U.S.A. among the most compulsively readable of modern classics.

A startling range of experimental devices captures the textures and background noises of twentieth-century life: “Newsreels” with blaring headlines; autobiographical “Camera Eye” sections with poetic stream-of-consciousness; “biographies” evoking emblematic historical figures like J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford, John Reed, Frank Lloyd Wright, Thorstein Veblen, and the Unknown Soldier. Holding everything together is sheer storytelling power, tracing dozens of characters from the Spanish-American War to the onset of the Depression.

The U.S.A. trilogy is filled with American speech: labor radicals and advertising executives, sailors and stenographers, interior decorators and movie stars. Their crisscrossing destinies take in wars and revolutions, desperate love affairs and harrowing family crises, corrupt public triumphs and private catastrophes, in settings that include the trenches of World War I, insurgent Mexico, Hollywood studios in the silent era, Wall Street boardrooms, and the tumultuous streets of Boston just before the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti.

The volume contains newly researched chronologies of Dos Passos’s life and of world events cited in U.S.A., notes, and an essay on textual selection.

LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

Informazioni sull?autore

John Dos Passos (1896–1970) was born in Chicago and graduated from Harvard in 1916. His service as an ambulance driver in Europe at the end of World War I led him to write Three Soldiers in 1919, the first in a series of works that established him as one of the most prolific, inventive, and influential American writers of the twentieth century.

This volume was edited by Townsend Ludington, Cary C. Boshamer Professor of English and American Studies at the University of North Carolina and author of John Dos Passos: A Twentieth Century Odyssey, and Daniel Aaron (1912-2016), Victor S. Thomas Professor of English and American Literature at Harvard University and a founder of The Library of America.