Drawing on memoirs, oral histories, newspapers, magazines, recordings, photographs, literature, and films, Stowe looks at New Deal America through its music and shows us how the contradictions and tensions within swing--over race, politics, its own cultural status, the role of women--mirrored those played out in the larger society.

Jazz critic for The New Yorker since 1957 and the author of some fifteen books, Whitney Balliett has spent a lifetime listening to and writing about jazz. "All first-rate criticism," he once wrote in a review, "first defines what we are confronting." He could as easily have been describing his own work. For nearly half a century, Balliett has been telling us, in his widely acclaimed pitch-perfect prose, what we are confronting when we listen to America's greatest—and perhaps only original—musical form. Collected Works: A Journal of Jazz 1954-2001 is a monumental achievement, capturing the full range and register of the jazz scene, from the very first Newport Jazz Festival to recent performances (in clubs and on CDs) by a rising generation of musicians. Here are definitive portraits of such major figures as Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Django Reinhardt, Martha Raye, Buddy Rich, Charles Mingus, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holliday, Art Tatum, Bessie Smith, and Earl Hines—a list that barely scratches the surface. Generations of readers have learned to listen to the music with Balliett's graceful guidance. For five decades he has captured those moments during which jazz history is made. Though Balliett's knowledge is an encyclopedic treasure, he has always written as if he were listening for the first time. Since its beginnings in New Orleans at the turn of the century, jazz has been restlessly and relentlessly evolving. This is an art form based on improvising, experimenting, shapeshifting—a constant work in progress of sounds and tonal shades, from swing and Dixieland, through boogie-woogie, bebop, and hard bop, to the "new thing," free jazz, abstract jazz, and atonal jazz. Yet, in all its forms, the music is forever sustained by what Balliett calls a "secret emotional center," an "aural elixir" that "reveals itself when an improvised phrase or an entire solo or even a complete number catches you by surprise." Balliett's celebrated essays invariably capture the so-called "sound of surprise"—and then share this sound with general readers, music students, jazz lovers, and popular American culture buffs everywhere. As The Los Angeles Times Book Review has observed, "Few people can write as well about anything as Balliett writes about jazz."

In Mary Lou Williams: Music for the Soul, Deanna Witkowski brings a fresh perspective to the life and music of the legendary jazz pianist-composer Mary Lou Williams (1910-81). As a fellow jazz pianist-composer, adult convert to Catholicism, and liturgical composer, Witkowski offers unique insight gleaned from a twenty-year journey with Williams as her chosen musical and spiritual mentor. Viewing Williams’s musical and corporal acts of mercy as part of a singular effort to create community no matter the context, Witkowski examines how Williams created networks of support and friendship through her decades long letter correspondence with various women religious, her charitable work, and her tireless efforts to perform jazz in churches, community centers, concert halls, and schools. Throughout this fascinating story told with equal amounts of deep love and scholarly research, Witkowski illumines Williams’s passionate mantra that “jazz is healing to the soul.”

The pulp fiction master Johnston McCulley is most famous today as the creator of Zorro, though over a long career he issued a plethora of exciting heroes and villains. Colourful characters such as Black Star, Thubway Tham, The Spider, The Bat, The Crimson Clown, The Thunderbolt and many more helped influence the development of American pulp and comic book literature. This eBook presents McCulley’s collected works, with numerous illustrations, many rare texts, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1) * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to McCulley’s life and works * Concise introductions to the major series * All the Zorro novels for the first time in digital publishing, with individual contents tables * Includes a selection of Zorro short stories * A wide range of McCulley’s famous creations * Features numerous pulp novellas and stories appearing in digital print for the first time * Images of how the books were first published, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts * Excellent formatting of the texts * Easily locate the stories you want to read * Ordering of texts into chronological order and genres CONTENTS: The Zorro Series The Curse of Capistrano (1919) The Further Adventures of Zorro (1924) Zorro Rides Again (1931) The Sign of Zorro (1941) A Task for Zorro (1947) Zorro’s Fight for Life (1951) Miscellaneous Zorro Short Stories The Black Star Stories The Black Star (1916) Black Star’s Subterfuge (1916) Return of the Black Star (1917) Black Star’s Campaign (1919) Black Star Comes Back (1921) The Thubway Tham Stories Thubway Tham Stories The Spider Series The Spider’s Den (1918) The Spider’s Sign (1918) Into the Spider’s Jaws (1918) The Spider’s Strain (1919) The Spider’s Reward (1919) The Thunderbolt Tales Master and Man (1920) The Kidnapped Midas (1920) The Big Six (1920) The Man in Purple Series The Man in Purple (1921) The Man in Purple Meets a Man in Blue (1921) Breath of Disaster (1921) The Bat Stories The Bat Strikes! (1934) Bite of the Bat (1934) Shadow of the Bat (1935) Code of the Bat (1935) The Crimson Clown The Crimson Clown (1926) The Avenging Twins The Avenging Twins (1927) The Rollicking Rogue Stories The Rollicking Rogue (1930) The Rollicking Rogue’s Second Deal (1930) The Green Ghost Series The Green Ghost (1934) The Day of Settlement (1934) Swift Revenge (1934) The Green Ghost Stalks (1934) The Murder Note (1935) Deadly Peril (1935) Bloodstained Bonds (1935) The Mongoose Cases Alias the Mongoose (1932) The Voice from Nowhere (1932) The Mongoose Strikes Again (1932) Smoke of Revenge (1932) Jewels of the Rajah (1932) Ransom for Vengeance (1932) Six Sacks of Gold (1933) Profit for the Mongoose (1933) Trap of the Mongoose (1933) The Whirlwind Stories Alias The Whirlwind (1933) The Whirlwind’s Revenge (1934) The Whirlwind’s Red Trail (1934) The Whirlwind’s Rage (1934) The Whirlwind’s Ready Blade (1934) The Whirlwind’s Frenzy (1934) The Whirlwind’s Private War (1935) Other Pulp Stories Wild Norene (1914) Captain Fly-by-Night (1916) The Jungle Trail (1917) The Brand of Silence (1919) Four Hours (1919) Carden, Crook Comedian (1920) Flaming Hate (1920) The Mystery of the Private Dining Room (1920) Mysterious Doctor Toke (1921) The Obvious Clew (1921) The Ghost Phone (1921) Jerry, the Boaster (1923) The Black Jarl (1923) The Scarlet Scourge (1925) Miscellaneous Stories

The Complete Works of R. M. Ballantyne is a comprehensive collection of adventure novels perfect for readers interested in 19th-century British literature. Ballantyne's writing style is characterized by vivid descriptions, captivating plots, and moral lessons woven into exciting tales of exploration and survival. His works, including The Coral Island and The Young Fur Traders, embody the spirit of the Victorian era's obsession with adventure and morality. The collection provides insight into the values and concerns of the time, making it a valuable addition to any literary enthusiast's library. R. M. Ballantyne, a Scottish author and journalist, drew inspiration from his own experiences as a youth to craft thrilling narratives that resonate with readers of all ages. His background as a sailor and his interest in history and geography shine through in his meticulously researched novels. Ballantyne's passion for storytelling and his desire to instill important values in young readers are evident in every page of his works. I highly recommend The Complete Works of R. M. Ballantyne to anyone seeking well-written adventure stories with moral depth. Ballantyne's timeless tales offer both entertainment and thought-provoking themes that continue to resonate with modern audiences.

The internationally acclaimed Canadian humorist, Stephen Leacock produced over thirty books of light-hearted sketches and essays. The beguiling fantasies and hilarious tales of ‘Literary Lapses’ (1910), ‘Nonsense Novels’ (1911) and ‘Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town’ (1912) helped launch Leacock’s career as a master writer of humour. He also produced learned and well-researched non-fiction books, including important historical works on his beloved home of Canada and reviews of literary figures. For the first time in publishing history, this eBook presents Leacock’s complete works, with numerous illustrations, rare texts, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1) * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Leacock’s life and works * All 27 short story collections, with individual contents tables * Features rare books appearing for the first time in digital publishing, including ‘Hellements of Hickonomics’ * Special chronological and alphabetical contents tables for the short stories * Easily locate the short stories you want to read * Images of how the books were first published, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts * Excellent formatting of the texts * Rare non-fiction works available in no other collection, including ‘How to Write’ and ‘Our British Empire’ * Includes Leacock’s play and autobiography * Features Peter McArthur’s seminal biography – discover Leacock’s literary life * Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles CONTENTS: The Fiction Literary Lapses Nonsense Novels Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town Behind the Beyond Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich Moonbeams from the Larger Lunacy Further Foolishness Essays and Literary Studies Frenzied Fiction The Hohenzollerns in America Winsome Winnie My Discovery of England College Days Over the Footlights The Garden of Folly Winnowed Wisdom Short Circuits The Iron Man and the Tin Woman Laugh with Leacock The Dry Pickwick Afternoons in Utopia Hellements of Hickonomics in Hiccoughs of Verse Done in Our Social Planning Mill Model Memoirs Too Much College My Remarkable Uncle Happy Stories Last Leaves The Short Stories List of Short Stories in Chronological Order List of Short Stories in Alphabetical Order The Play “Q”: A Farce in One Act The Non-Fiction Elements of Political Science Baldwin, Lafontaine, Hincks: Responsible Government Adventurers of the Far North The Dawn of Canadian History The Mariner of St. Malo The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice Mackenzie, Baldwin, Lafontaine, Hincks Economic Prosperity in the British Empire Mark Twain Charles Dickens: His Life and Work Humor: Its Theory and Technique, with Examples and Samples The Greatest Pages of American Humor Humor and Humanity Here Are My Lectures My Discovery of the West Our British Empire Canada: The Foundations of Its Future Our Heritage of Liberty Montreal: Seaport and City Canada and the Sea While There is Time How to Write The Autobiography The Boy I Left Behind Me The Biography Stephen Leacock by Peter McArthur Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles or to purchase this eBook as a Parts Edition of individual eBooks

The sixteen volumes are published with the goal that Hughes pursued throughout his lifetime: making his books available to the people. Each volume will include a biographical and literary chronology by Arnold Rampersad, as well as an introduction by a Hughes scholar lume introductions will provide contextual and historical information on the particular work.