*"Rivaling the nonfiction works of Steve Sheinkin and Daniel James Brown's The Boys in the Boat....Even readers who don't appreciate sports will find this story a page-turner.

With an extraordinary cast of characters, this is biography at its best - part history, part gossip, and part informed reassessment.

With a historian’s perspective and a critic’s insight, award-winning author Andrew Delbanco marvelously demonstrates that Melville was very much a man of his era and that he recorded — in his books, letters, and marginalia; and in ...

Andrew Lycett (acclaimed biographer of Ian Fleming) has returned to primary sources to tell the intricate story of a misunderstood genius who became Britain's most famous and highest earning author.

Updated with a new preface and including photos and illustrations, this “absolutely gripping” read reveals the dramatic story behind one of the classics of children’s literature (Evening Standard). “A psychological thriller . . .

Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro explains when and why so many people began to question whether Shakespeare wrote his plays.

" As Lisa Chaney explores Barrie's own struggles to grow up, she deepens our understanding both of his most famous character and of the complex relationship between life and art.

Alongside each of these authors, we also glimpse the everyday Americans who read them. “If you’re a history buff, a presidential trivia aficionado, or just a lover of American literary history, this book will transfix you, inform you, ...

In reality, he was a dissident whose works were highly critical of the regimes of Elizabeth I and James I. Who Killed William Shakespeare? examines the means, motive and the opportunity that led to his murder, and explains why Will ...