John Henry O'Hara, the American author from Pottsville, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, was so engrossed by the coal-rich "Anthracite Region" that he wrote about it in his professional work and personal correspondence for most of his life. The history, geography, and society of the area, particularly within a thirty-mile radius of Pottsville, were put under a microscope throughout O'Hara's career. John O'Hara's Anthracite Region covers the exciting period from the 1880s to 1945 in the coal region of Pennsylvania. John Henry O'Hara investigated, studied, and recorded the most intimate aspects of the upper class of his "Pennsylvania Protectorate" from his first novel, Appointment in Samarra, onwards. From the "Aristocrats'" escape to Eagles Mere, Sullivan County to the amusement parks such as Tumbling Run and Marlin Park in the "Anthracite Region," O'Hara captured every detail of the upper class's way of life. The social enclaves such as The Out Door Club, The Pottsville Club, and The Schuylkill Country Club did not escape O'Hara's pen in such novels as Ten North Frederick and The Lockwood Concern. These places, the people, and their fashionable attire, automobiles, houses, and schools are all captured within this unique photographic layout of O'Hara's work that wonderfully re-creates the history of this region.

The writer John O'Hara (1905-1970) came from Pottsville in Pennsylvania. He put his home town and the surrounding vicinity under a microscope to produce an account of 'The Anthracite Region' that rivals Edith Wharton's descriptions of New York and Sinclair Lewis's anatomy of Sauk Centre. With the discerning eye of a local resident, O'Hara recreated this coal-rich region and its people so well that his novelettes, novellas, novels, plays and short stories give a true record of his 'Pennsylvania Protectorate' in the latter part of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. In order to reveal the ethnographical, geographical and historical authenticity of the O'Hara Canon, this book examines his writings in the context of Pottsville and the borough of Tamaqua, as well as the nearby towns and villages. The author also investigates both O'Hara's genteel upbringing and his gangster stratum. The book explores the many dimensions of O'Hara's life from the time of his birth until his escape to New York City in 1928. New sources such as unpublished letters and interviews with O'Hara's family, friends and enemies provide important insights into O'Hara, as well as into Pottsville and the surrounding region.

Writing with equal insight about New York City, Hollywood, and the small-town Pennsylvania world where he grew up, John O’Hara cultivated an unsentimental and often unsparing realism, aiming, he said, “to record the way people talked and thought and felt . . . with complete honesty.” Praised by contemporaries including Ernest Hemingway and Dorothy Parker, he wrote about sex, drinking, and social class with a frankness ahead of its time. The fiction he published in The New Yorker (more than any other writer to this day) came to epitomize the kind of short story featured in that magazine, and his impeccable ear and skillful dialogue have influenced later writers such as Raymond Carver. Bringing together sixty stories written over four decades—the largest, most comprehensive collection of O’Hara’s stories ever published—former New York Times Book Review editor Charles McGrath presents a fresh and arresting new perspective on one of American literature’s master storytellers. 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.

John Henry O'Hara, the American author from Pottsville, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, was so engrossed by the coal-rich "Anthracite Region" that he wrote about it in his professional work and personal correspondence for most of his life. The history, geography, and society of the area, particularly within a thirty-mile radius of Pottsville, were put under a microscope throughout O'Hara's career. John O'Hara's Anthracite Region covers the exciting period from the 1880s to 1945 in the coal region of Pennsylvania. John Henry O'Hara investigated, studied, and recorded the most intimate aspects of the upper class of his "Pennsylvania Protectorate" from his first novel, Appointment in Samarra, onwards. From the "Aristocrats'" escape to Eagles Mere, Sullivan County to the amusement parks such as Tumbling Run and Marlin Park in the "Anthracite Region," O'Hara captured every detail of the upper class's way of life. The social enclaves such as The Out Door Club, The Pottsville Club, and The Schuylkill Country Club did not escape O'Hara's pen in such novels as Ten North Frederick and The Lockwood Concern. These places, the people, and their fashionable attire, automobiles, houses, and schools are all captured within this unique photographic layout of O'Hara's work that wonderfully re-creates the history of this region.

Examines the basic elements of O'Hara's novels and short stories to reveal the reasons for his sustained popularity

A Study Guide for John O'Hara's "Appointment in Samarra," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.

The definitive biography of short story writer John O’Hara.

The Appalachian mountain chain once contained the highest and most dramatic mountains on earth. Worn down over time, these mountains still hold some of the most diverse climactic zones and singular geological formations in existence. In East 40 Degrees: An Interpretive Atlas, Jack Williams examines a succession of beautiful but little-known towns along this cordillera (a term descended from the Latin chorda, meaning "braided rope"), revealing in their layers of history and geography how both their diverse cultural and social circumstances and their geological history were instrumental in forming each town's distinctive character.Referring to the spatial orientation of the Appalachian mountain chain, the "east 40 degrees" of the title runs from Alabama through fifteen states to the coast of Maine. Each town Williams examines sits within the folds of these mountains or beside a river nourished in their moist uplands. Beginning his record with the continental collisions that shaped each town's history more than 300 million years ago, Williams allows us to "see the tenuous web of connections between ourselves and the natural processes that shape this earth." Featuring a wealth of beautiful and significant illustrations and maps, this unique work brings into focus the critical issues of environmental and cultural sustainability confronting us today. Elegant, poetic, and erudite, East 40 Degrees will appeal to architects and landscape architects, planners, environmental historians, ecologists, geographers, and anyone interested in the history and origins of our modern landscapes and towns. Publication of this volume was assisted by a grant from Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund.

“John O’Hara’s fiction,” wrote Lionel Trilling, “is preeminent for its social verisimilitude.” Made famous by his bestselling novels, including BUtterfield 8 and Appointment in Samarra, O’Hara (1905–1970) also wrote some of the finest short fiction of the twentieth century. First published by the Modern Library in 1956, Selected Short Stories of John O’Hara displays the author’s skills as a keen social observer, a refreshingly frank storyteller, and a writer with a brilliant ear for dialogue. “The stories in this volume,” writes Louis Begley in his new Introduction, “show the wide range of [O’Hara’s] interests and an ability to treat with a virtuoso’s ease characters and situations from any place on America’s geographic and social spectrum.” From the Trade Paperback edition.