Courtships of the prophets

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Matthew Arnold

General Grant by Matthew Arnold with a Rejoinder by Mark Twain presents conflicting essays and cultures. Matthew Arnold's 1886 essay on Grant praised the general and his posthumously published Memoirs, but to many Americans its tone seemed patronizing of their hero and country. Grant's friend and personal benefactor, Mark Twain, delivered a caustic rejoinder to the Army and Navy Club of Connecticut in April 1887. Thus Arnold became a pet prejudice of Twain's and may have served as an inspiration for A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. In this volume, Twain's rejoinder is published in a correct text for the first time since the Hartford Courant printed his speech.

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George Burns

George Burns pays tribute to his partner, wife, and love of many decades, contrasting the zany, scatter-brained radio person she presented with her private self--an intelligent, caring, and devoted actress, wife, and mother.

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Richard Blow

An editor at "George" magazine explores Kennedy's last, defining years, revealing how he dealt with the challenges of running a successful business, managed the pressures of a high public profile, and adjusted to married life.

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Norman K. Risjord

Perhaps the most hotly debated character in American history, Thomas Jefferson stands as an enigma representing different and of ten contradictory ideas. That one man, for example, could author the Declaration of Independence and simultaneously own slaves or that he could recoil at the expansion of the federal government but later double the size of the country in a pen stroke has caused historians to question the true meaning of Jefferson's contribution to America's founding. This brief sketch of Jefferson answers many of the apparent contradictions of his fruitful life. Specifically, the author finds continuity in Jefferson's evolving philosophy of political economy. Because Jefferson was not a man intellectually tied to any single ideology, he was fully capable of embracing competing "persuasions" that seem to us today incompatible. The author shows how Jefferson's rhetoric was more a matter of time and circumstance than an element of absolute belief and demonstrates that Jefferson was not only a facile thinker but also a consummate politician.