Ralph Ellison's literary career began in 1937 with the publication of his review of Waters Edward Turpin's "These Low Grounds." Over the next 15 years he published 10 short stories and 37 essays on literary, cultural, and political topics. But when "Invisible Man" was published in 1952, Ellison received immediate acclaim from a wide variety of critics, scholars, and novelists. While his novel emerged as a major work of African American literature, it also engaged the European literary tradition and influenced an entire generation of post-World War II writers. Ellison is now one of the most...

From her early classic "Three Lives" to her best-selling "Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas" to "Brewsie and Willie, " a loving tribute to the G.I.s who adored her, Gertrude Stein's work was among the most controversial of the modernist movement. Alternately praised and derided, emulated and ridiculed, Stein was as unique a celebrity as the mass media of the early 20th century ever produced. As her influence spread through the lost generation she nurtured, critics from Edmund Wilson to confidant Carl Van Vechten defended her experimentation against the slings and arrows of the literary...

Almost a century before their arrival in the English New World, Blacks appeared alongside the Spanish in what is now the American West. Through their families, communities, and institutions, these Western Blacks left behind a long history, which is just now beginning to receive systematic scholarly treatment. Comprehensively indexing a variety of research materials on Blacks in the North American West, Junne offers an invaluable navigational tool for students of American and African-American history. Entries are organized both geographically and topically, and cover a broad range of...