For the inimitable Lee Smith, place is paramount. For forty-five years, her fiction has lived and breathed with the rhythms and people of the Appalachian South. But never before has she written her own story. Set deep in the mountains of Virginia, the Grundy of Lee Smith's youth was a place of coal miners, tent revivals, mountain music, drive-in theaters, and her daddy's dimestore. It was in that dimestore--listening to customers and inventing adventures...

"To say Virginia "Dindy" Hall was ambitious would be an understatement. She was that girl at your high school who makes everyone else look like a slacker, no matter how hard they're working. But how many of them can say they've been on Nazi Germany's Most Wanted list? At a time when most women were expected to becomes wives and mothers, Virginia craved adventure. And with the world gearing up for a second World War, this fearless woman knew that she...

"A new biography of Bunny Mellon, the style icon and American aristocrat who designed the White House Rose Garden for her friend JFK and served as a living witness to 20th Century American history, operating in the high-level arenas of politics, diplomacy, art and fashion. Bunny Mellon, who died in 2014 at age 103, was press-shy during her lifetime. With the co-operation of Bunny Mellon's family, author Meryl Gordon received access to thousands...

Cultural critic Roiphe delves deeply into one of the most layered of subjects: marriage. Drawn in part from the private memoirs, personal correspondence, and long-forgotten journals of the British literary community from 1910 to the Second World War, here are seven "marriages à la mode"--each rising to the challenge of intimate relations in more or less creative ways: H.G. and Jane Wells; Katherine Mansfield; Vera Brittain and George Gordon Catlin;...

"Edward Everett Tanner III, under his pseudonyms of Patrick Dennis and Virginia Rowans, was the author of sixteen novels - most of them bestsellers - including the classics Little Me and Genius. But despite the success of his other works, he is by far best known and best remembered for his most indelible creation, Auntie Mame." "Based on extensive interviews with colleagues, friends, and relatives, Uncle Mame is a revealing, appealing portrait of...

"The Material World of Eyre Hall presents an extensive history of the Eyre family from the 17th through the 21st century, offering a rare and fascinating insight into the preservation of a family home whilst also exemplifying the changing aspects of southern history through Eyre Hall's material culture. Featuring the work of 22 contributors this volume is composed of four main sections, which examine the historical and cultural significance of Eyre...