"A Rose of Yesterday" is the story of two young men who fall in love with the same woman. Being good friends, one of them gallantly steps aside and lets the other woo and marry her. But he turns out to be the wrong man for her as he becomes a monster, drinking and beating his wife and their son. What fate holds for her uncovers later in the story.

(Applause Books). Gathered together in one volume for the first time, here are all of the incomparable song lyrics of Irving Berlin the lyrics of more than 1,200 songs, 400 of which have never before appeared in print along with anecdotal, historical, and musicological commentary and dozens of photographs. Berlin came from a poor immigrant family and began his career as a singing waiter, but by the time he was nineteen he was publishing his songs and quickly found fame with "Alexander's Ragtime Band" in 1911. In the extraordinary six decades that followed, Berlin wrote one popular hit after another: Blue Skies * Always * Cheek to Cheek * White Christmas * God Bless America * There's No Business Like Show Business * and many more. He also wrote a number of the classics of musical theater's Golden Age, climaxing with Annie Get Your Gun . He penned three Astaire and Rogers films Top Hat, Carefree , and Follow the Fleet as well as the scores of Holiday Inn, Easter Parade , and other films. The breadth of his accomplishment is staggering.

The American author Alice Morse Earle (1851-1911) practised a distinctive form of historical writing which made innovative use of material evidence in its focus on the details of everyday life. Lavishly illustrated, this 1902 work illuminates the social history of two 'garden delights': sundials and roses.