Stephen Vincent Benet

This early work by Stephen Vincent Ben t was originally published in 1937 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'The Devil and Daniel Webster' is a short story about a successful lawyer who believes you can win your soul back from the devil. Stephen Vincent Ben t was born on 22nd July 1898 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, United States. Ben t was an accomplished writer at an early age, having had his first book published at 17 and submitting his third volume of poetry in lieu of a thesis for his degree. During his time at Yale, he was an influential figure at the 'Yale Lit' literary magazine, and a fellow member of the Elizabethan Club. Ben t was also a part-time contributor for the early Time Magazine. Ben t's best known works are the book-length narrative poem American Civil War, John Brown's Body (1928), for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1929, and two short stories, The Devil and Daniel Webster (1936) and By the Waters of Babylon (1937). Ben t won a second Pulitzer Prize posthumously for his unfinished poem Western Star in 1944.

An exploration of race and heritage, For My People is the first book by poet and novelist Margaret Walker (1915–1998) and the 41st volume of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Considered among the most important collections of poetry written by a participant in the Black Chicago Renaissance, For My People is a series of ballad poems with memorable characters, including the New Orleans sorceress Molly Means; Kissie Lee, a tough young woman who dies “with her boots on switching blades”; Poppa Chicken, an urban drug dealer and pimp; John Henry, killed by a ten-pound hammer; and Stagolee, who kills a white officer but eludes a lynch mob. The memorable title poem evokes the power of resilience not only for black people, but for all people.

Stephen Vincent Ben t (July 22, 1898 - March 13, 1943) was an American poet, short story writer, and novelist. He is best known for his book-length narrative poem of the American Civil War John Brown's Body (1928), for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1929, and for the short stories "The Devil and Daniel Webster" (1936) and "By the Waters of Babylon" (1937). In 2009, The Library of America selected Ben t's story "The King of the Cats" (1929) for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American Fantastic Tales edited by Peter Straub. Ben t was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to James Walker Ben t, a colonel in the United States Army, and his wife. His grandfather and namesake was a Minorcan descendant born in St. Augustine, Florida who led the U. S. Army Ordnance Corps from 1874 to 1891 with the rank of brigadier general, a graduate of the United States Military Academy who served in the American Civil War. The younger Ben t's paternal uncle Laurence Vincent Ben t was an ensign in the United States Navy during the Spanish-American War who later manufactured the French-Hotchkiss machine gun.

"A Book of Americans" is a collection of poems concerning important figures in early American history, written by Stephen Vincent Ben t. This volume is highly recommended by poetry lovers with an interest in American history, and it is not to be missed by collectors of vintage literature of this ilk. Contents include: "John Quincy Adams", "Andrew Jackson", "Zachary Taylor", "John James Audubon", "Nancy Hanks", "Daniel Boone", "Crawford Long and William Morton", "Sam Houston", "Western Wagons", "Clipper Ships and Captains", "James Buchanan", "Crazy Horse", "Stonewall Jackson", "Abraham Lincoln", etc. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new introduction.

Heavens and Earth, A Book of Poems by Stephen Vincent Ben t. This book is a reproduction of the original book published in 1920 and may have some imperfections such as marks or hand-written notes.

THE brig was already a white-sailed toy on blue waters. Soon enough she would be hull down on the horizon, then nothing at all. No man among her crew would ever set foot again willingly on the island where that crew had marooned its captain. And Vasco Gomez, lost and alone on a pin-point of earth set down among waves that seemed to come from the other end of the world, stretched out his arms and laughed loudly for the first time since they had set him ashore. He was known as a clever man and a lucky captain in every waterside tavern where the freebooters gathered. But this marooning of himself on a lost and uncharted island was the cleverest and luckiest exploit in a career that had held little mercy and no noteworthy failures. It had not been an easy task. No, even for Vasco Gomez, it had not been easy. His own name for good fortune had worked against him, as had the quite justifiable fear his reputation inspired in the most hard-bitten of free companions. It had taken untiring craft and skill to bring even a crew of wolves to the point of mutiny against Vasco Gomez. And even greater art to see to it that these wolves, once roused, should maroon a living man where he wished to be, and not merely cast a hacked body overside.

Among Ben t's most beautiful and moving works are these eight deceptively simple short stories that he assembled as Tales of Our Time. Each tale uses a seemingly commonplace situation-a class reunion, a funeral, teenagers falling in love in the summer, a family embarrassed by a father's crude joke, a marriage quietly failing under cover of social courtesies-to expose the fraught and complex dimensions of the characters' relationship to society and themselves. The picture of America that these stories paint is full of wit and humor, but also sorrow and tragic awareness. They are a reminder to today's reader of how much of our "modern" experience is really universal, and how even those people and societies most changed by the course of progress remain at heart the same people, for better and worse.